Heat Waved
Fansided

City of Glendale Votes To Void Arizona Coyotes Lease

By Richard Duflo

facebooktwitterreddit

Here we go again, folks. If you thought the stable ownership and positive financial progress made by the Arizona Coyotes organization was enough to keep them out of the now regular offseason drama, think again.

The City of Glendale held a special meeting on Wednesday to vote whether or not to kill the lease agreement they have with the Arizona Coyotes. The motion passed 4-3.

More from Arizona Coyotes

Many Coyotes fans, business owners around WestGate, Glendale residents and Coyotes representatives spoke to the council in hopes of swaying the minds of the council members. Unfortunately for them, their pleas fell on deaf ears as the council members already had made up their minds and nothing that was said to them was going to change that.

Glendale’s argument is that there was a conflict of interest by the Coyotes hiring of ex city attorney Craig Tindell. In Glendale’s mind, this is a breach of contract and a way out for them.

However, in February 2013, Tindall resigned and wasn’t brought on to the Coyotes until August 2013. Glendale would need to prove that Tindall worked on the current lease agreement. It doesn’t seem likely that Tindall worked on the lease as IceArizona, then Renaissance Sports Entertainment, began negotiating a lease agreement with Glendale in May of 2013.

Coyotes CEO Anthony LeBlanc and the team’s attorney, Nick Wood, spoke as well.They made their position clear, there would be legal action taken against the City of Glendale if this vote were to pass.

Sure enough, minutes after the vote was passed, the Coyotes organization released this statement,

"“We are disappointed with the city’s decision to violate its obligations under the agreement that was entered into and duly approved only two years ago. We will exhaust any and all legal remedies against the city of Glendale for this blatant violation of its contractual obligations to us.”"

So, now we head to the legal battle. Wood mentioned that the Coyotes organization would start off by filing a $200 million suit if Glendale proceeded with this action. He didn’t say what else they would do, but the $200 million suit would be “to start.”

The Coyotes seem extremely confident in their standing and are not worried about what will happen in court. If Glendale thought what they were paying was too much, that is about to become a miniscule number compared to what they will have to pay when this is all said done if the Coyotes win in court.

LeBlanc said that this is not the end of NHL hockey in Arizona after the vote. So, this does not mean that the team is leaving, but they are in for yet another fight for their lives in Arizona.

Of course, the relocation talk is back, but something interesting that should be pointed out made it’s way around social media prior to the vote. It involved relocation, but not to Seattle, not to Quebec and not to Las Vegas, but to Phoenix.

Phoenix City Hall reporter for the Arizona Republic and AZ Central, Dustin Gardiner, tweeted this out on Wednesday:

Gardiner followed this tweet up with a story in which he interviewed Phoenix City Councilman, Michael Nowakowski. Here’s what Nowakowski had to say,

"“It looks like there’s an opportunity to actually bring the Coyotes now,” said Nowakowski, whose district includes parts of downtown. “I’m trying to reach out to them and have those conversations. It will be myself and the mayor working on it. But nothing has been set up yet.”"

Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton also spoke about this opportunity to Gardiner saying it would be “inappropriate” to set something like this in motion while the Coyotes are under contract with Glendale.

Stanton also said that he was not “going to discuss with the media what Michael Nowakowski and I may or may not have spoken about last night.”

There has been talk of the Phoenix Suns getting a new arena in downtown Phoenix. This is all still very early, but it appears that Phoenix may try to get the Coyotes back into U.S. Airways until construction on this new Suns arena is completed which could be built to accommodate both the Suns and Coyotes.

More from Heat Waved

Keep in mind, there is nothing concrete on that front and this is all very early, but if things go wrong for the Coyotes in court, there might be a home for them in downtown Phoenix yet again.

While this is very early with no solid details, it’s still important to point out that these discussions are at least taking place. There has been no word from the Coyotes organization about this, but I expect they will have to address it at some point as this has picked steam with Coyotes fans on social media.

It’s time yet again to see if the Coyotes have any lives left as they enter yet another legal battle.

Home/Arizona Coyotes