Team is moving to Salt Lake City. It's finally over.

The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.

Salt Lake City is a smidge bigger than Aurora. Why are they moving there? So they can move again in another few years?

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

Salt Lake City is a smidge bigger than Aurora. Why are they moving there? So they can move again in another few years?

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

I don't know if Salt Lake City is the best answer for the Coyotes (or another NHL team), but IMO it's a better option than Phoenix / AZ.

I don't know if Salt Lake City is the best answer for the Coyotes (or another NHL team), but IMO it's a better option than Phoenix / AZ.

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

There's none worse. The new defense is "but they have great youth hockey programs!," which I'm sure you could say about Saskatoon, but no one's putting a team there. Everyone who has owned the Phoenix team has lost money, lied about having money, or in the case of the last guy, not paid bills and taxes. Real billionaires line up to buy marginal NBA teams like the Magic and Grizzlies, but every prospective Coyotes owner is just Lyle Lanley from the monorail episode. No one with actual money wants to run an NHL team in Phoenix. The last guy only did it because it was a way to get a sportsbook license.

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

PHOENIX -- Alex Meruelo is walking away from ownership of the Arizona Coyotes, putting hockey's future in the desert further in doubt.

Meruelo's son, Alex Jr., told Coyotes staff of the decision on Monday, a person with knowledge of the move told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the plans have not been made public.

Meruelo's decision to walk away from the franchise comes four days after the Arizona State Land Department announced it was canceling an auction for a 110-acre tract of land in north Phoenix that had been targeted for a new arena.

The ASLD canceled and reordered the steps for the auction on the tract of land appraised at $68.5 million, citing the need for a special use permit for the project.

PHNX's Craig Morgan first reported Meruelo's decision.

Meruelo had targeted the land to build a new arena, but when the auction for it was pushed back until this summer, he followed the advice of the NHL and opted to sell the franchise to Utah Jazz owners Ryan and Ashley Smith in April.

The Smiths moved the franchise to Salt Lake City, renaming it the Utah Hockey Club. Meruelo retained the Coyotes' name, logo and trademark with plans to resurrect the team as an expansion franchise if a new arena is built within five years.

Any expansion franchise would now be under a new owner if the NHL decides to expand. The league will likely wait a year or two for the dust to settle a bit in Arizona before looking at expansion.

The Coyotes have been searching for a permanent home almost since the day the franchise moved from Winnipeg in 1996.

The team shared a downtown Phoenix arena with the NBA's Phoenix Suns before moving to Glendale in 2003. When the city of Glendale backed out of a long-term lease agreement, the franchise's future was cast into further doubt.

The Coyotes moved across town to play at Arizona State University's Mullett Arena in 2022, but the 5,000-seat arena, by far the smallest in the NHL, was supposed to be a temporary solution until the franchise could find a new home. The NHL was reluctant to have the team continue playing at Mullett for several more years while Meruelo tried to secure the north Phoenix land, leaving the sale to the Smiths as the only viable option.

Once the land auction was canceled, Meruelo opted to back out of ownership of the franchise instead of pursuing the land any further.

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.