The NHL Board of Governors is set to meet in Seattle on Monday and Tuesday, and one of the main topics of conversation is expected to be the future of the Arizona Coyotes.
The ‘Yotes are in their second season playing at Mullett Arena in Tempe, AZ. It’s the 4,600-seat home of the Arizona State University Sun Devils and is their temporary facility while they endeavor to procure land for a new full-sized arena in the Valley.
And while PHNX Sports‘ Craig Morgan reported Sunday that the Coyotes are zeroing in on a parcel of land within the Phoenix city limits as a potential new arena site after their previous Tempe project was defeated by a referendum back in May, Daily Faceoff‘s Frank Seravalli indicated on Monday’s episode of "Daily Faceoff Live" that the Board of Governors may be losing patience with the current situation in the desert.
Here’s a brief excerpt from the conversation between Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Are we talking about a team that’s maybe getting close to figuring things out in Arizona, or do you think, maybe, some governors are running out of patience with this whole thing?
Frank Seravalli: Oh, I think there’s certainly more than a handful of governors that have run out of patience. You see a team playing out of a 4,600-seat arena with no end in sight, that’s a revenue suck, not a revenue draw. I know people will say, ‘Oh, they exceeded the revenue of their last full season in [Desert Diamond Arena].’ OK, well, that doesn’t matter. Five percent more of nothing is still nothing. On a grand scheme, the NHL needs to get back to a spot where all 32 teams are currently producing strong revenue, and the Coyotes are a significant outlier. They would lend you to believe that they’re getting close to getting a new site together for a new arena — I’m not sold on that.
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