Phoenix Coyotes

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Phoenix Coyotes
Conference	Western
Division	Pacific
Founded	1972
History	Winnipeg Jets 1972-1996 Phoenix Coyotes 1996-present
Arena	Jobing.com Arena
City	Glendale, Arizona
Local Media Affiliates	FSN Arizona KDUS (1060 AM) KDKB (93.3 FM)
Team Colors	Brick Red, Sand, Black, and White
Owner	Wayne Gretzky Jerry Moyes
General Manager	Michael Barnett
Head Coach	Wayne Gretzky
Captain	Shane Doan
Minor League Affiliates	San Antonio Rampage (AHL) Phoenix RoadRunners (ECHL) Laredo Bucks (CHL)
Stanley Cups	None
Conference Championships	None
Division Championships	None

The Phoenix Coyotes are a professional ice hockey team based in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale. They play in the National Hockey League (NHL).

[edit] Franchise History

[edit] Winnipeg Years — WHA and NHL

The team began play as the Winnipeg Jets, one of the founding franchises in the World Hockey Association (WHA). The Jets were the most successful team in the short-lived WHA, winning three Avco World Trophies, the league's championship trophy, and making the finals five out of the WHA's seven seasons. It then became one of the four teams admitted to the NHL when the rival leagues merged in 1979.

However, the club was never able to translate that success into the NHL after the merger. Whenever they did make the playoffs, the Jets either got beaten in the first round, or eliminated by the Edmonton Oilers in the second round. And despite strong fan support, the money simply was not around for the team, with operating costs and player salaries growing so rapidly. The team was sold to out-of-town interests, and in 1996, the club moved to Arizona and became the Phoenix Coyotes.

[edit] Moving Problems

In the summer that the move took place, the franchise saw the exit of Jets stars like Teemu Selänne and Alexei Zhamnov, while the team added established superstar Jeremy Roenick who teamed up with power wings Keith Tkachuk and Rick Tocchet to form a dynamic 1-2-3 offensive punch that led the Coyotes through their first years in Arizona. Also impressive were young players like Shane Doan (the last remaining original Jet), Oleg Tverdovsky and goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin, arguably the most popular player in Coyotes history, whom the fans nicknamed the "Bulin Wall". Fleet sniper Mike Gartner came too, from the Toronto Maple Leafs.

After arriving in Phoenix, the team posted six consecutive .500 or better seasons, though they have never made it out of the first round of the playoffs, a streak which dates back to 1988, while they were still in Winnipeg.

Despite his speed, and scoring his 700th career goal on December 15, 1997, Gartner battled injuries as 1997 became 1998, and the Coyotes didn't renew his contract. Gartner retired once the season was out.

The closest they came to advancing was during the 1999 playoffs, when they lost a heartbreaking Game 7 to the St. Louis Blues. The Jets/Coyotes franchise is currently the oldest NHL team to have never appeared in the Stanley Cup Finals. Since 2002 the Coyotes, due to lack of ownership stability and poor personnel strategies, have fallen to the lower echelon of the NHL and attendance levels have dropped, worrying many National Hockey League executives. In addition, an unfavorable lease with America West Arena, where the team played for its first eight years in Phoenix, had the team bleeding red ink.

The Coyotes were a hot ticket in Phoenix in the late 90s, and had superb attendance. However, America West Arena soon proved to be an inadequate location for an NHL team. Several seats were obstructed because the arena's floor wasn't designed with a hockey rink in mind, unlike most modern arenas. Seating capacity had to be cut down to 16,000 — the second-smallest in the league at the time — after the first season. Even then, a stretch of the upper deck actually hung over the ice, obstructing the views of around 3,000 spectators. Some fans even claimed that they saw where the concrete had been sheared off to create retractable seats for hockey. After attempts failed either to renovate America West or build an arena in Scottsdale, the Coyotes built Glendale Arena, which they moved into in 2003. Simultaneously, the Coyotes changed their logo and uniforms, heeding to hockey purists, and amazing many fans once again.

[edit] Recent Years

In August 2005, two months before the start of the new hockey season, the Coyotes announced that Oilers/Los Angeles Kings former superstar Wayne Gretzky would be the new coach of the team, replacing interim coach Rick Bowness. That month, the team signed aging superstar Brett Hull, son of former Jets great "The Golden Jet," Bobby Hull, and unretired the elder Hull's number for the younger to wear. "The Golden Brett" only lasted a few games before finding that the increased speed of the NHL under the new rule set was too late for him. In another, rather unusual, move, the Coyotes re-honored another Jets great, Thomas Steen, in 2006, despite the fact that his number had been retired by the Jets some years earlier.

As of around 11:00 P.M. EDT on June 19, 2006, when the Carolina Hurricanes, formerly the Hartford Whalers, won the Stanley Cup, the Phoenix Coyotes became the only NHL team from the WHA era to have not yet won a Stanley Cup (going back to the Winnipeg years).

The Coyotes, led by captain Shane Doan, "The Last Jet", hoped for a happy return to Winnipeg on September 17, 2006, playing a pre-season game against the 2006 Stanley Cup runner-up Oilers. Several thought it might be close, as Gretzky and Edmonton bench boss Craig MacTavish had been Oilers teammates from 1985-88. But Doan's anticipated "happy return to Winnipeg" didn't come even close, as the Coyotes were shut down 5-0, despite outshooting the Oil by a mere margin of 27-26, with a startling performance by Oilers' rookie goaltender Devan Dubnyk in front of a sellout pro-Edmonton crowd of 15,015 at the MTS Centre, the primary tenant of which is the Manitoba Moose, the American Hockey League affiliate of the Vancouver Canucks.

[edit] Season-by-season record

Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, OTL = Overtime Losses, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against, PIM = Penalties in minutes

Records as of November 25, 2006. <ref>Hockeydb.com, Phoenix Coyotes season statistics and records.</ref>

¹ Season was cancelled due to the 2004-05 NHL lockout.

² As of the 2005-06 NHL season, all games will have a winner; the OTL column includes SOL (Shootout losses).

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