spartacat_12

On today's 32 Thoughts podcast Elliotte Friedman said that the team would use Utah as the name, not Salt Lake.

There is still a group of fans that will be heartbroken by the move, even if it isn't as sizeable as other markets, plus hundreds of regular people who will be losing their jobs or forced to uproot their lives if they want to stay employed. Obviously it's a business decision, but there are still human impacts to any relocation.

Coyotes is a fairly generic name, but the Kachina design is too Arizona-specific to work anywhere else. I'd also think that the Utah group is looking for a clean break from all the negative baggage associated with the Yotes. Based on the reporting, it seems like the league is trying to come up with a deal that allows them to move the team without risking being sued by Moruelo. Part of that deal likely involves preserving the branding for the imaginary future franchise (which will most likely never see the ice).

Look I'm well aware that I've taken the unpopular side of this debate over the years. Part of it is because I've personally seen a couple of my teams get relocated (including one I was working for), and part of it is just playing devil's advocate to try and balance things out. When they lost the Tempe vote I assumed that would be it for them, and I'm still a little confused as to why the league didn't just get the relocation wheels in motion as soon as that happened. What I'm pointing out is the hypocrisy within the hockey community (not just on here). Any time a new arena/stadium is announced people complain about public funding and talk about how it never actually helps taxpayers, yet there's suddenly all this excitement about Utah having a new publicly funded arena planned.

Even if there aren't trademark issues, it just feels like a poor branding strategy to use a name that's already associated with a major pro team. Besides, we already have a bear-based team in the NHL, so Grizzlies wouldn't exactly be original.

Bill Daly has said that there won't be enough time to relocate the team for next season if they wait until after the June 27 auction date, so it seems like there are 3 options here: Yotes win the land auction and stay in Mullett for the next few seasons while the new rink is being built. Yotes are unsuccessful in winning the auction, play one more year in Mullett, then move to SLC for 25-26 season. Yotes sale & move to SLC for next season gets announced prior to the land auction, agreement is made with the league that they will be awarded an expansion franchise if they can get the new arena built Regardless of which option ends up happening, we'll at least have some sort of finish line to this whole situation by the end of June or sooner.

Being across the street from Scottsdale doesn't mean anything. The plan has always been for the Coyotes to develop the land themselves without relying on infrastructure from Scottsdale. The 64th Street off ramp the mayor mentioned is completely within the Phoenix city limits, so that also has nothing to do with Scottsdale. The N Scottsdale road off ramp is fine, and handles plenty of traffic every year during the Waste Management Open.

IMO the Rangers home blues are a top 3 uniform in the league, so this would be awful. But I guess it wouldn't be unprecedented for them to break out an alternate for the playoffs.

Well the arena isn't going to be in Scottsdale, and the Coyotes already planned to use Phoenix infrastructure for the development. Not sure why anyone cares about this guy's opinion.

They had to put down a sizable deposit when they committed as a bidder. I'm assuming they also would've had to provide proof that they can actually pay for the land/development in order to get approval to bid. Yeah, that's not how it works. In order to bid on the land you have to already have a proposal in place for how you plan to develop it. But sure, let's dump all over a privately financed arena plan and advocate for the team to play in a building that rinsed taxpayers out of hundreds of millions of dollars.

SLC Screech Owls has a nice ring to it, but maybe I'm blinded by my nostalgia for this book series as a kid.

While it does have an ice plant in order to host events like Disney on Ice, the arena is similar to Barclays in that you'd have a ton of obstructed views. They've said that it isn't capable of being an NHL rink.

I'd hold onto them as long as you can. I grew up getting to wear some of my dad's old jerseys, so there's a good chance your son gets to an age where he can appreciate them. If he ends up not caring you can always sell some of them. Any jersey that's gone up in value by now should only keep getting more valuable as time goes on. If you have the space to hang any of them up I would say you should try and frame some of your favourites that you don't expect to wear often.

Ryan Smith has just shared a survey asking people to submit name suggestions for a potential Utah NHL franchise: Among the names being mentioned in the replies, not very many catch my attention. Blizzards seems like the best option, but of course most of the people suggesting it seem to just want to use the singular 'Blizzard'.

And once again, not a single person has suggested putting a ram head logo on the helmet, so I'm not sure why you keep bringing up the Ravens. Someone suggested the Rams should go back to using the horned helmet as the primary logo, which they did in the '80s up until they moved to St. Louis. You seemed to interpret this as them suggesting that the team should use their primary logo on the helmet instead of the horns.

You still seem confused. No one is suggesting taking the horns off the helmets and replacing them with a logo. You say a ram head is generic, but it would be miles better than the gradient-filled L@ logo that's currently used as the primary logo. The Rams just need to pull a Chicago and swap the designations of their two logos so that the head is the primary and the LA monogram is the secondary.

Seems pretty premature to make this announcement before they've actually won the bid for the land. They must be confident that their won't be any other bidders, otherwise they're just asking to be dunked on. They at least seem to be putting some effort into the PR campaign, which is what cost them the vote on the Tempe plot. These quotes from Meruelo are really emphasizing the lack of tax dollars being used on the project. If only they had made sure this got communicated properly with the previous arena project.

I'm guessing that they go with something Canada-related, especially since I'm pretty sure the red Canada Day jerseys aren't being used anymore. The whole idea of the CC series seems to be coming up with something that would sell to a person who wouldn't otherwise buy your team's jersey.

It's looking like Rogers is considering selling off part of their Canadian NHL broadcasting rights to Amazon. The report is that Monday night national games will be moved to Prime up here for the next couple of years before Rogers's contract is up. Amazon already had plans in place for a documentary series next year following a select group of players, so it isn't a huge surprise, but it looks like the beginning of the end of the sports media Bell/Rogers duopoly up here.

I like how the white inline trim on the name & numbers pops off the grey background, and it's the only jersey that actually says TORONTO. The Rockies actually look like a purple team on the road, as opposed to the home jerseys which just look like White Sox rip-offs unless you're close enough to notice that the pinstripes are purple.

This is basically Chicago's road jersey with red numbers and the black stripes extended to the end of the sleeves/hem.

The Adidas jersey was a big improvement over the Team Canada rip offs they had before, but the lack of silver & the barely noticeable flag pattern make it worse than the originals.

It seems like it's worse than the proposed Tempe site, but not as bad as Glendale. For most of the fanbase that's in the East Valley they'd still have a decent drive, but they at least wouldn't have to drive through central Phoenix. North Scottsdale is also one of the richest areas of Phoenix, which doesn't hurt.

Matt Duchene is probably the only notable Avalanche player who I'd associate with that uniform first. It looks strange to see him in the Adidas set.