Arizona Coyotes announce plans for new hockey arena

Struggling on and off the ice, the National Hockey League’s Arizona Coyotes announced Monday plans for a 16,000-seat arena in Tempe expected to open in late 2019.
The Coyotes, whose 13,360 average attendance is third-worst in the 30-team league, have long been mentioned as a relocation candidate but kept in the desert Phoenix suburbs through bankruptcy by a host of owners and the NHL losing $112 million operating the team.
The city of Glendale built the 17,000-seat arena in 2003 near the home stadium of the NFL Arizona Cardinals as the hub of shops and restaurants and has spent millions of dollars to support the club and keep the entire business area afloat.
Now the Coyotes have a deal with a developer of sports facilities at Arizona State University in Tempe for a new arena on the other side of the city plus a 4,000-seat arena for practices and college sports with a hotel and other business in the plans over time.
“The Coyotes are committed to Arizona, and we are extremely excited about our bright future,” Coyotes majority owner Andrew Barroway said. “We’re going to build a world-class facility that our fans are going to be excited about.”
The Coyotes, who expect to continue playing in Glendale through the 2018-19 campaign, plan to pay for nearly half of the facility in partnership with Arizona State.
“We’re putting our money where our mouth is,” Barroway said. “This is a huge investment for us.”
Coyotes president Anthony LeBlanc said research showed most of the team’s fan base and sponsors were based nearer Tempe than Glendale and an arena there could boost crowds.
“We would like to have shovels in the ground by the end of next summer,” LeBlance said. “We definitely want this facility open by 2019-20.”
The Coyotes have the worst record in the NHL at 5-9 for a league-low 10 points. Since moving from Winnipeg in 1996, the team’s only playoff series victories came in 2012, when they beat Chicago and Nashville before falling to Los Angeles in the Western Conference finals.