Kansas City NHL

NHL Back in Kansas City: Target #3: Ottawa Senators

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The third team on the list of targets for a move is the Ottawa Senators. Their attendance numbers last season put them at the bottom of the league averaging 9,155 fans, which put them at 47.8% capacity. The Senators have been the center of scrutiny while being owned by Eugene Melynk. Upon his death in March, the team was left to his daughters. While in most cases this would stir up speculation, this seems to have had the opposite effect. Most of that can be contributed to the drama and antics swirling around Melnyk the last few years of his life, from rumors of employee abuse to threats to move the team to legal issues abound.

Let’s discuss the rocky history of the team. The modern-day version of the Senators was the idea of Bruce Firestone in 1988. After campaigning two years, he was awarded a franchise on December 6, 1990 to begin play for the 92-93 season. The team played in the Ottawa Civic Center, while they worked on the development of the new arena. During that process, that included getting rural land rezoned, Firestone had to bow out. Rod Bryden took over ownership in 1993.

After playing the first few seasons at the Civic Center, the Senators finally got to play in the new home on January 17, 1996. What was first known as The Palladium became the Corel Centre one month later. It’d later be named Scotiabank Place, then Canadian Tire Centre. The arena would plague the team with debt, as well as scrutiny for being so far from the city. The debt that Bryden incurred led to a bankruptcy filing on January 9, 2003.

In 2003, Canadian businessman and philanthropist Eugene Melnyk bought the team and arena. At the time, he was seen as the savior, vowing to keep the team in Ottawa. Things went good under his ownership, the team went to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2007. Then, things started to go bad. In 2017, he began threats to move the team if he didn’t see more support. In September 2018, he released a video with plans for a team rebuild, where he referred to the team as being “in the dumps”, which got him criticism. That saw the beginning of the push from fans for him to sell. He had no intention of selling. The 2018-19 season saw the franchise record for empty seats drop to a 22 year low, with the average attendance trending down since 2012-13. In 2019, the New York Post called the Senators the laughingstock of the NHL because of debt, lawsuits, and drama surrounding Melnyk. Part of the lawsuits and drama was tied to Melnyk’s desire to build a new arena Senators in a project known as LeBreton Flats. A project that fell apart for him when the relationship between him and John Ruddy turned sour.

Melnyk died March 28, 2022. Immediately questions arose about the future of the team. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman told reporters team was left to Melnyk’s daughters, Anna and Olivia, saying it was “completely stable and functioning in the ordinary course.” May 4, 2022 saw a report there were parties interested in purchasing the team. One of those was Quebecor, which would be looking to purchase it to move to Quebec. The other was John Ruddy, who was previously a partner of Melnyk’s in the exploration of the LeBreton Flats project.

June 23, 2022 saw the announcement the Senators had won a bid to build a new arena at LeBreton Flats. Populous Design (KC company) has been named as the design team. With that, it seems almost certain the team’s future in Ottawa is secure and John Ruddy probably has the inside track on purchasing the team if it were to be sold anytime soon. But a dark horse could always come in and throw a monkey wrench into plans, it’s been known to happen.

NHL in Kansas City: Target #1: Arizona Coyotes

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NHL jersey and affiliation news has been exciting, but back to the subject at hand. It appears the NHL’s not interested in expanding beyond 32 teams, so let’s look at teams that could be ripe for a new home.

After looking at attendance for the 2021-22 season, I’ve made a list of 5 teams that could be ripe for a change of scenery. These teams all fell under 75% of capacity. Two around 50%. Four have gone public with arena issues.

To keep things concise, I’ll focus on one team each blog. The first team is the ever popular soap opera known as the Arizona Coyotes.

First, let’s start with a rundown of team history. The team started as a WHA team called the Winnipeg Jets in December 1971. In June 1979, the Jets were one of the WHA teams absorbed by the NHL. July 1996 saw the franchise move to Arizona and become the Phoenix Coyotes.

In 2003, the team relocated again, this time a few miles away to Glendale. This would be the beginning of the drama. Jerry Moyes bought the team in 2005, by 2009 he declared bankruptcy. The NHL took over the team, signing a short-term lease with Glendale. In 2010, the league received a bid for the team, but it was derailed by a litigation threat. When the league threatened to move the team in 2013 (they nearly moved to KC), Glendale signed a 15-year lease with the team to support the new ownership effort.

By 2015 with new ownership in place, Glendale voided that lease after alleging a violation of conflict of interest laws. This started the year-by-year lease agreements. In 2016, the team had plans to move to ASU, building an arena there, but the university backed out of the deal.

In July 2019, the Coyotes got a new majority owner in Alex Meruelo. He purchased a 95% stake in the team. The previous owner, Andrew Barroway, maintained a 5% minority stake. Despite the change in ownership, the Coyotes arena troubles continued.

The drama with Glendale, Gila River Arena, and Coyotes heated up as the city and arena got fed up with unpaid bills. They threatened to lock the team out if debts were not paid. The Coyotes dodged that bullet, paying the debts off just in time.

Gila River Arena management had enough of the drama, and gave the Coyotes notice they wouldn’t be welcome back at the conclusion of the 2021-22 season. This began speculation of where the team would move, with cities like Quebec and Houston salivating at the possibility of bringing the NHL home.

The Coyotes settled in on a plan to temporarily share facilities with ASU as they worked on a new arena site in Tempe. The Coyotes will be playing the next 3-4 seasons at ASU, sharing the 5,000 seat arena with the college, assuming they don’t violate the agreement they entered with the college. In the meantime, the Coyotes work to get the green light for land they’re interested in near the airport. The airport and FAA have questioned the plans, not just for the arena but the development that would surround it. It should be noted this is land the Arizona Cardinals had interest in building a stadium on 20 years ago.

So, while the Coyotes don’t look like a winning team with the current roster. The team has a promising future on the ice, somewhere. Where that future ends up is a big question mark, until the Coyotes get an agreement worked out on that land, get the land purchased, and start the digging.

Meanwhile, if they can’t figure things out in the desert, KC could be a perfect landing spot. There’s an NHL caliber arena available with no other regular tenants. There would be no need to realign the league, the team would fit perfectly in the Central Division. Also, with the built-in hockey fan base that exists they certainly would draw more than the paltry 5,000 or even their previous season average of 11,601. Of course, in this case, there’s also Houston.