The Arizona Coyotes relocation rumblings are about to get louder.
According to a Wednesday report from the Glendale Star, members of the Coyotes franchise recently toured arenas in Seattle and Portland — likely the KeyArena in Seattle and the Moda Center in Portland.
This report came out less than one week after a Coyotes’ proposal to build a 16,000-seat arena in Tempe, Ariz., near the main campus of Arizona State University fell apart.
“[The city] recently had a tour for potential developers and potential ownership groups and there was a representative from the [Coyotes] that was part of that,” a spokesperson for KeyArena told the Glendale Star.
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Coyotes executive VP of communications, Rich Nairn, told the outlet in an email that he wasn’t aware of any member of the organization who participated in the tour. Coyotes president and CEO Anthony LeBlanc further denied the report in a press release Thursday.
“Recent reports by the Glendale Star that the Coyotes ownership group has explored arena options outside the Arizona market are completely false,” LeBlanc stated. “The Star referenced an anonymous arena source and an anonymous Coyotes source, and these are a fabrication.
“The Coyotes are focused on creating one of the most taxpayer friendly facilities in the country here in the Valley. This new arena will pay for itself, create jobs and generate millions of dollars of revenue for the state, county and municipality where it’s built. We are fully committed to Arizona.”
The Coyotes currently play at the Gila River Arena in Glendale, Ariz. The team signed a 15-year, $225-million arena lease deal with the city of Glendale in 2013, but the City Council voted to terminate the lease in June 2015. A month later the city and team eventually restructured the lease agreement to keep the team in Glendale for two more seasons. The team has a lease option for the 2017-18 season and LeBlanc said back in November the team was working on extending it.
Rumours about an NHL franchise heading to Seattle, either via expansion or through relocation, have been prevalent for several years contingent on the city finding a suitable venue.
“I happen to think the Seattle market would be intriguing for the NHL at some point, but we’re not sitting around waiting for them to get their act together on an arena,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told Prime Time Sports in January 2016. “If it happens someday then we’ll deal with it at the time.”
