Gary Bettman and Coyotes President and CEO Anthony Leblanc reportedly met with potential stakeholders to discuss the possibility of the hockey team getting a new arena, per Arizona Sports’ Craig Morgan.
The Coyotes have just one year remaining on their lease at the Gila River Arena and Leblanc doesn’t expect the team to stay in Glendale long-term.
“I will never say never, but it’s highly, highly unlikely,” Leblanc said of being in Glendale for the long haul.
Here’s an excerpt from Morgan’s article:
Bettman and LeBlanc met with state leadership, officials from Arizona State University and officials from the City of Phoenix, including Mayor Greg Stanton.
Arizona Sports could not confirm whether Bettman and LeBlanc met with officials from the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community regarding a proposed location along the 101 corridor, though Bettman did tell Arizona Sports recently that the league has no face-value objections to the idea of an NHL arena on tribal lands.
At Saturday’s Coyotes town hall meeting, LeBlanc said he expects to make some sort of arena announcement within the next six weeks, although if the Coyotes need to extend the timeline a bit, it shouldn’t pose any problems.
Here are some of the potential landing spots for a new arena:
--ASU Karsten Golf Course in Tempe, Arizona
--Downtown Phoenix (near Talking Stick Resort Arena)
--The Arizona 101 loop
--A spot near the Chicago Cubs’ spring training facility in the city of Mesa, Arizona