Arizona Coyotes

Lore & Background

The team began as the Winnipeg Jets, the most successful franchise in the WHA, winning the Avco World Trophy three times. Upon joining the NHL in 1979, the Jets lost most of their best players in a reclamation draft and finished last in the league in their first two seasons, including a nine-win season in 1980–81. They recovered to make the playoffs 11 times in 15 seasons but won only two playoff series, largely due to being in the same division as the powerful Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames. Financial troubles in the 1990s, exacerbated by rising player salaries and Winnipeg's small market, led to the team's sale and relocation to Phoenix in 1996. In Arizona, the team played at America West Arena, which was suboptimal for hockey, forcing a reduced seating capacity. The Coyotes posted six consecutive .500 or better seasons and made the playoffs in all but one year, though they advanced past the first round only once in their first decade, during the 1999 playoffs. The franchise struggled with ownership changes, including NHL control from 2009 to 2013, and a difficult relationship with Glendale, leading to a move to Mullett Arena in 2022. After a rejected arena proposal in Tempe in May 2023, the Coyotes suspended operations in 2024, with hockey assets transferred to the Utah Hockey Club and the team's name and history retained by owner Alex Meruelo, who later relinquished them after a failed land auction in June 2024.

Reader's Guide

The Arizona Coyotes represent a notable case of franchise instability in professional hockey. Despite a successful WHA pedigree as the Winnipeg Jets, the team struggled to replicate that success in the NHL, hampered by the merger's reclamation draft and strong divisional rivals. The relocation to Phoenix was intended to solve financial woes but instead introduced new challenges, including an inadequate arena and ongoing ownership turmoil. The team's inability to secure a long-term home, culminating in a temporary arrangement at a college arena and a rejected arena proposal, led to the suspension of operations. The franchise's dissolution was unique: the NHL brokered a split where hockey assets moved to Utah as an expansion team, while the Coyotes' name and history were initially kept by the owner for a potential future arena, a plan that ultimately failed. This outcome underscores the difficulties of sustaining an NHL team in a non-traditional market without stable arena and ownership.

Did You Know?

• The Coyotes were originally the Winnipeg Jets, a charter franchise of the WHA that won the Avco World Trophy three times.
• The team played at America West Arena, which was designed for basketball and had sight lines that obscured nearly a third of the rink from some seats.
• The Coyotes became the first NHL team to earn 90 points and miss the playoffs, in the 2000–01 season.
• The franchise's hockey assets were transferred to the Utah Hockey Club (later Utah Mammoth) after the 2023–24 season.

From Prairie Champions to Desert Nomads

The franchise that would one day wear the Arizona Coyotes name began life on the Canadian prairies. Founded on December 27, 1971, the Winnipeg Jets joined the World Hockey Association as a charter club and quickly became its most formidable competitor, claiming the Avco World Trophy three times and reaching the league's championship round in five of the WHA's seven seasons. When the financially unstable WHA ceased operations and the NHL admitted four of its clubs on June 22, 1979, the Jets arrived in the major league carrying that championship pedigree. The merger's reclamation draft, however, allowed established NHL teams to reclaim players who had jumped to the upstart league, and the Jets lost most of their core talent overnight. The once-dominant squad finished last in the NHL during its first two seasons, posting a nine-win record in 1980–81 that still stands as the worst mark in franchise history. Despite a partial recovery—eleven playoff appearances over the following fifteen seasons—the team could never escape the shadow of the Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames in its division, winning just two playoff series before financial pressures in the 1990s ultimately forced the franchise out of Winnipeg.

Naming the Coyote

The journey from Winnipeg to the Phoenix metro area was anything but straightforward. In October 1995, Minnesota businessmen Steven Gluckstern and Richard Burke acquired the Jets with plans to relocate them to Minneapolis–St. Paul, a city that had lost its own NHL club in 1993. When they failed to secure a lease at Target Center by December, the destination shifted to Phoenix, and the team was rebranded as the Phoenix Coyotes on July 1, 1996. The naming process itself became a local event: after the organization considered options like "Mustangs," "Outlaws," "Wranglers," and "Freeze," a public name-the-team contest settled on "Coyotes." At the time, many fans saw the choice as a playful nod to Wile E. Coyote from Looney Tunes, especially since Phoenix had hosted a short-lived WHA team called the Roadrunners and an IHL club of the same name was active in 1996. The coyote, however, was a fitting choice on its own merits, being native to the entire state of Arizona, unlike the roadrunner which is confined to the southern and western regions. The franchise would later drop "Phoenix" from its name on June 27, 2014, becoming simply the Arizona Coyotes.

A Franchise in Perpetual Limbo

Despite the fresh start in the desert, the Coyotes never achieved the kind of institutional stability that sustained many of their NHL peers. The team cycled through multiple ownership changes, and the relationship with the city of Glendale, where they played at Gila River Arena from 2003, grew increasingly strained. In 2009, owner Jerry Moyes filed for bankruptcy and surrendered the franchise to the NHL, which retained direct control until 2013 when new ownership committed to keeping the team in Arizona. Alex Meruelo assumed majority ownership in July 2019 and later became sole owner after the arrest of minority partner Andrew Barroway. The Glendale relationship finally collapsed in 2021, and the team signed a temporary deal to play at Mullett Arena on the Arizona State University campus in Tempe beginning with the 2022–23 season. The arrangement was meant to bridge the gap until a new arena was built in Tempe, but residents voted down the arena proposal in May 2023. With no viable long-term home and a college venue widely regarded as too small even for interim use, the Coyotes suspended hockey operations after the 2023–24 season ended.

The Fracture

The final chapter of the Arizona Coyotes was not a single dramatic event but a slow unraveling. Following the suspension of operations, the NHL brokered a deal that effectively split the franchise in two. The hockey assets—players, coaching and administrative staff, and future draft picks—were transferred to the Utah Hockey Club, an expansion franchise simultaneously awarded to Ryan Smith and based in Salt Lake City, now known as the Utah Mammoth. The team's name, historical records, and intellectual property were initially retained by Meruelo, who had expressed intent to construct a new arena in Arizona by 2029. That ambition, however, proved unattainable. In June 2024, a land auction for a prospective arena site in Arizona failed to produce a buyer, and Meruelo subsequently relinquished his franchise rights and intellectual property back to the NHL. The organization that had been established in 1971, that had won three WHA championships, that had worn the names Winnipeg Jets, Phoenix Coyotes, and Arizona Coyotes, was rendered inactive. The franchise's story, spanning five decades and three cities, ended not with a final game but with a failed auction and a quiet transfer of rights.

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