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Phoenix fans are OK with Winnipeg having an NHL team... Just not theirs

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Having gotten to tour around Jobing.com Arena in Glendale and to get on the ground and see how things go hockey-wise in Arizona, I got the same feeling you would in any other place in the NHL. The team is the same, the staff is the same, the facility is a gorgeous jewel in the middle of the desert. The Coyotes are led by a captain that embodies what it means to be a leader in the NHL, and there’s enough characters around the team to be extremely entertaining in any city anywhere in North America.

The fans are welcoming, warm and knowledgeable which helps make everything that’s going on surrounding the team off the ice all the more difficult. With the ongoing sale saga involving Matthew Hulsizer and the Goldwater Institute surrounding Hulsizer’s proposal to get public money to help him buy the Coyotes, the fans and residents of Glendale (not always a mutual association) are left in the awkward lurch of continuing to spend their own money on a team that they’re not even sure will be around next year.

Jobing.com Arena and the surrounding Westgate City Center filled with all sorts of economic goodies and condominiums offer plenty of things for the fans and residents to help spend their money but without an anchor tenant at the arena, prospects become quite bleak.

Jordan Frank is a Coyotes fan from Glendale who’s been a fan of the team since they moved from Winnipeg in 1996. Hearing from him, you can tell just how tough the situation is for fans there.

“I see both sides of the story. There’s no legal thing [Goldwater Institute] can do. They can try to stop it. It all comes down to whether or not the city can afford to shell out that much money in this economy. I don’t think so, but at the same time we spent tons of money building this stadium and if it’s empty... What’s the point?”

“At the end of the day, I’d be upset because it does more harm than good if the team moves, " Frank says.

Amy Jo Green is another huge supporter of the team and she says that Goldwater’s motives in this aren’t quite looking out for the public good so much anymore as it is looking out for what’s best for themselves.

“Goldwater has latched onto this situation as an opportunity for significant publicity and fundraising for their own betterment. If Goldwater only cared about the taxpayers, they would not be doing radio shows in Canada and doing idiotic publicity stunts like joining Facebook groups for the return of the Jets.”

Goldwater’s tactics of late throughout this affair have caught the attention of fans and they’re not happy with it. Phoenix morning radio host Brian “Sludge” Haddad has started a Facebook group of his own to mock the public watchdog commission and rally support for the team called the Sludgewater Institute.

The words I heard from lots of people around the Coyotes were simple and stuff that doesn’t provide Winnipeg supporters with a lot of fire: “We’re fine with a team going to Winnipeg... We just don’t want it to be this team.”

Former Jets fans should be empathetic to the situation given what happened when the Jets left Manitoba in the mid-1990s. While many fans in Manitoba are frothing at the mouth at the prospect of getting the NHL back, perhaps they should take a step back in the shoes they were standing in 15 years ago before getting too anxious.