(upbeat music) - This episode is brought to you by Experian. Are you paying for subscriptions you don't use, but can't find the time or energy to cancel them? Experian could cancel unwanted subscriptions for you, saving you an average of $270 per year, and plenty of time. Download the Experian app. Results will vary, not all subscriptions are eligible savings, they're not guaranteed paid membership with connected payment account required. (upbeat music) - Think you know the Brooks ghost? Think again, introducing the all new, better than ever, Ghost 16. Now with nitrogen infused cushioning for lightweight, supreme softness that feels good every step, every street, every single day. So go ahead, take your daily joyride in the all new nitrogen infused ghost 16. It'll turn your everyday miles into everyday endorphins. Let's run there. Head to brooksrunning.com to learn more. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) It is a massive night in the NHL, and I'm not talking about the family cupfregs because tonight you broke the news that Alex Morello is walking away from his ownership of the Arizona Coyotes. Thank you all so much for tuning in to an emergency edition of the PH&X hockey podcast. Don't forget to hit that like button on this video, subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Leave us a five star review. I'm Leah Merrill here with Craig Morgan himself. Craig, what is going on? - What is going on? Well, the Florida Panthers are standing like up champions with that was a cool thing to see. And yeah, there's other news tonight, obviously, as well. I didn't want to break it during the cup final. That's weird, right? But like, yeah, I got to do my job, but it felt wrong to put it up during the cup final, and as you know, chasing this most of today, actually a fat confirmation for a little while and was writing the story, but Alex Morello is out, confirmed it by multiple sources. Junior met with the staff today, told them they're done. They're not going to pursue anymore arena potential arena options after the Arizona State Land Department canceled the auction that was supposed to be held this Thursday at which they, you know, they hoped to bid on a parcel of land and build the arena and entertain the district there. With that to the side, we can talk a lot of these details, but the big news, and I know a lot of Coyotes fans have been wondering if this is coming, is that Alex Morello is out, so Phoenix is wide open again. When the NHL officially announces it, Phoenix will be wide open again for other groups to come in and seek an expansion franchise. - Yeah, so I think we should definitely clarify what this means. Obviously, Alex Morello is part of the deal with selling the Coyotes to Ryan Smith in Salt Lake City, was that he would have an exclusive five-year window in which he could reactivate the franchise with the deadline of December 31st, 2027 to have the building 50% complete and a Dow payment. And as you mentioned, Craig, with all of these roadblocks over the last couple of days, I mean, it seems like, who knows how long they've been considering this? It seems like it was a pretty fast 180 from Friday's news that the auction got canceled to today, Monday, deciding to mail it in at this point. But with him walking away and deciding not to pursue land at this point, it does, once it's made official, open the door for other ownership groups. And we should also be clear as well. That means that Arizona becomes an expansion market on the same playing field as any other potential expansion market. - Yeah, and that's the hard thing for people to hear. You know, you want to think, oh, you know, maybe they'll put us at the top of the list because wow, we've been through a lot here in Arizona and somebody feels sorry for us, but no, that's not the way it works. And listen, while the NHL says that it's not in expansion mode right now, Atlanta has formally applied for a franchise and they're well ahead of the game. They have something that Arizona has needed for a while. They have an arena that's planned. They have arena plans. They have bought the land. So they're way ahead of the game. I gotta believe that Atlanta's gonna be one of the next expansion sites. And then we'll just see, you know, Gary Bettman has said that they've received multiple expressions of interest. Some of the cities that he mentioned, you kind of squint when he says it, like really, the NHL's not going to those places. But I gotta believe Phoenix is near the top of the list at the same time with all that has to happen here. As I've been saying repeatedly, it's hard to imagine something happening quickly. It's hard to imagine something happening within that five year window that I know a lot of people are hoping might still be a reality. - I think, you know, there's been a few camps on this since, you know, we learned the news in April that the Coyotes were partially relocating to Salt Lake. There was the camp of people who were Alex Morello is the fastest way to get this done. There was a camp of people who thought, "I don't want anything to do with Alex Morello." And it felt like after Friday's news of the auction getting canceled, the statement that the Coyotes put out after, it felt like that last group of people who felt that Morello was the fastest option kind of changed their tune. And at least from what I saw on social media and in our discord for the most part, it seemed like people, you know, started to come around to feeling like they didn't want any part of a Coyotes team that Morello was involved in. - Yeah, there were a couple of things with that release in particular and listen, you hear these things but you know that I like to confirm things with inside sources rather than just, oh, I heard this from some guy but noticeably absent in that release was any commitment to keeping hockey in Arizona. It was more, and part of it was anger 'cause they thought that they had worked in good faith with the state and suddenly they had the rug pulled out from under them again. And listen, obviously a lot of this is of their own doing but there was no mention of keeping the team being committed to keeping the team. And then earlier today I reported that, oh, all of a sudden the Tucson roadrunners will not be playing six games at Molotorena, something that they had planned. They had tried to move the team up here completely to stay in contact with the market while they pursued an expansion franchise. Well, all of a sudden you're pulling it back and it looked like a reaction to the land department's decision but more than that. Well, it stated that in the release, Greg. - It was a precursor to this. It was, okay, we're not gonna be in the Phoenix market at all. We're not gonna bother with any of this. They're gonna be in Tucson. And listen, I know a lot of people have asked about this and it's not really much of a secret. I gotta believe that that team, I think the Marathos are gonna continue to own the roadrunners and they'll keep 'em affiliated with Utah as long as they can or maybe they'll try and find another affiliation if Utah breaks it. But I really do think, and this is no surprise to a lot of people that Alex Morello is gonna move that team out of Tucson and move it to Reno in his new arena, which I think is supposed to come online in the fall of 2026. The roadrunners are signed for actually three more years. So I'm not sure what will happen for that final year if it's set in stone, but I gotta believe that that team is headed to Reno in three more years. So sorry to tell Tucson fans that, but yeah, you're probably not gonna have an AHL franchise for much longer. - Yeah, that moved today of pulling back on those six games, which Craig, that came out of nowhere. You were about to walk out of our office today and all of a sudden you got a text and there that was. It felt like it really felt like a statement from the Marathos, like we're done with the Valley. Like they just completely pulled the plug on it and walked away. And I don't know, I'm not surprised that it came to this. I think I'm just surprised how quickly it did. Just given the fact that the auction got canceled on Friday and it's Monday and they already walked away. Were there other options for Morello if not for that North East Phoenix site? - Not great ones. We knew that they had a letter of intent out. By the way, is my lighting changing for you too? It feels like I'm in a dance hall here because I. - It is changing, is there a TV over there or something? - I don't know what's happening here. - Okay. - So it's just entertainment value for me. Enjoy it. I go ghostly white for a little bit and then I look really tan. So I don't know what's happening. - It's like the rollercoaster of covering the coyotes. - Yes, yes, right. It's our visual interpretation of the coyotes. That's what's happening here. They had a letter of intent out on a site in Mesa and another one undisclosed. My understanding was neither one of those was zoned for an arena. So that creates a problem in and of itself, right? When you look at a city like Mesa, if you have to rezone it, there's a public process. If there's a public process, there's the possibility of what, a referendum. We know how that goes. We know that a referendum is not gonna pass. And when you're in a municipality that's smaller like Mesa versus Phoenix, the threshold of signatures that you need to get it on, the ballot is much lower. So it's easier for an opposing group like a union, an out of state union, for instance, to get it on the ballot, which is what happened in Tembi. So those weren't great options. Clearly, this was what they felt was the best option. I know that they reached out there. There's been talks, listen, this has been going on for a very long time with the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian community. But it's never, nobody's ever gotten very far with that community. And there've been some issues. For Alex Morello, he wanted to build a sports book. I thought there was a way around that with a partnership or just put it off-site or don't even bother because people bet on their phones now. I'm not even sure how important that is, but really he wanted to build a residence as it was a big part of his revenue model. You cannot do that on tribal land. So I'm not sure that the revenue model will work for them. Sorry, my phone's going off as you can imagine, but the revenue model just didn't work for them. So this really, again, Tembi was their best option. This felt like the next best option, but also kind of a last ditch option, a Hail Mary to get this done, to try and get it done under the gun before something happened on the league's front. And it didn't work out. - It's a Hail Mary except they tripped on the one yard line and the blockade was the special use permit. And I think there's been a lot of questions too. And listen, we got into this to cover sports, not zoning laws and city council and state land laws, but from what we understand, the process to acquire the special use permit is very, very long. And it would have added close to a year to this process. And on a timeline that you already are limited in having to reach certain thresholds, to get the team back in the way that the league presented it, that they would have the exclusive rights, that it would only be the $1 billion expansion fee because at this point, there's nobody on this earth who is gonna get an expansion team for $1 billion. Like that price is going up. And it just, I think might have just been too hard to go down that path. - Yeah, with the zoning in particular, with getting the special use permit, now the Republican reported, I believe back in December, that it was necessary. The coyotes interpreted this a different way. And honestly, if you look at the zoning in the city of Phoenix, it's not exactly clear. So I could see their argument for saying, hey, it is allowed. We should be able to build an arena, but the city of Phoenix gets to decide. And the coyotes do a while ago that they needed a special use permit, but I was told by one source that it can take eight to 10 months. So at that point, when they found out, and you got Gary Vetman and you're saying, hey, we need to know by the end of the regular season, if you have a solution, they probably didn't have the time to do it. So I think what might have happened here is Alex Morello might have risked going to auction, trying to win it, and then going the permit route afterward, trying to secure the zoning afterward, which is, it's very risky, but in some ways, it does show that he was really committed to trying to get this done. But then this comes along. Well, yeah, I can't help wondering, and I guess it shouldn't be a surprise because it was pretty apparent that Keke Iago didn't want to work with the Morelos based on the language about tax abatements, et cetera. I can't help wondering if there was some politicking going on behind closed doors that helped kill this as well. But again, I don't want to put this on local politicians. Everything's nuanced, right? Like nobody's blameless in this, but Alex Morello just didn't do anything to help himself along the way. Wherever we're talking about, he soured the relationship in Glendale by kind of playing the part of Bully with them. They failed in the Tempe vote 'cause they just didn't commit to that campaign. I think they were overly confident and they ran a terrible campaign. They're playing in a 4,600 seat arena. They try to move the road, so many mistakes. And so often it was, we're just gonna do what we want. We're not gonna communicate with stakeholders. We're not gonna develop relationships. We're just kind of kind of bully people. One thing that I want to say, I wrote this when Alex Morello first bought the team. He made his fortune by purchasing distressed assets and then stripping them down and building them back up. And it'd been a very successful thing. Two problems with that. What you do with distressed assets is, in order to make them profitable again, will you squeeze your creditors? You offer them, oh, I owe you this, I'll give you half that. And then it's a negotiation where you bargain the price down. That's the way he learned to do things. You can't do that in professional sports. It's a public, very public business. Everything that you do ruins your reputation. You need to develop relationships. You can't just squeeze people and make it all about profit. That model does not work in pro sports. And he never learned it. He never learned it. He just kept operating like he always did. And as a result, he just didn't build a heck of a lot of relationships. Relationships and perception, I think, was another thing. And understanding that a huge part of currency in sports is public perception. And we saw so many errors, Craig, with approaches in public statements, like the one we saw Friday, and approaches to social media strategy that I know was not being executed by the people who were actually getting paid to do their social. That is not who was sending the tweets that were questionable. And it almost seemed like it got to a point that even if the Morelos decided, okay, they're gonna pivot from this latest roadblock of the auction getting canceled, what direction could they have gone in? You already talked about some of the things they could have faced as just as far as potential referendums. But at this point, there's almost no credibility in the community. And at that point, you almost feel like the best thing to do. And this is a drum that Petey's been beating for like two months now is the best thing for him to do is just to walk away. And that's finally happened today. And I know there's a lot of Coyote fans who are feeling relieved, happy, and I'm curious, for those of you here in the chat, and there's a lot of you, thank you for being here, please hit the like button on this video. I'd like to just see people put one word in the chat. What are you feeling right now, knowing that Alex Morello has walked away? I think there's a lot of people who are really, really happy to see this and just based on the perception in our Discord tonight and on Twitter. A lot of people saying this feels like Christmas morning for me. And I'm sure the Morello's wouldn't necessarily want to hear that. I'm seeing a lotion relieved relief, peace, happy closure. Really interesting to see these words from Coyote fans who maybe two months ago wouldn't have felt this if Morello chose to walk at that time. It's crazy, right? To feel that way, to feel elation is, I'm sorry, Coyote fans. I'm sorry that that's what brings you happiness at this point. That shows how much Coyote fans have been through. To be happy about this situation, you lost your team. We lost the team in Arizona, and it always traces back, not just this group, but through multiple ownership groups. It traces back to ownership. They've had unstable and poor ownership for almost the entire history in Arizona. That's the biggest storyline of the Arizona Coyotes, poor, unstable ownership. We can talk about the arena situation, but that was, again, that was a product of bad decisions by owners. We've talked about the original sin of Steve Elman going west to Glendale because he wanted his real estate development. He made his money, he bailed, and he screwed the team. But it always goes back to ownership. And for that, I need to reiterate this, and I've said this before, that's a bit on the league. The league did not do a good job of vetting these ownership groups. Some of this blame, as committed as he was to this market and as much as he did for this market, some of this blame falls on Gary Bettman for not vetting these ownership groups better than he did. - Yeah, and it's just, you know, you even look at tonight, the Stanley Cup was awarded and you look at the last few Stanley Cup winners and something they have in common is ownership that's committed to spending money and to winning. And that's just something that this market hasn't seen and listen, Florida, I mean, we can do a whole podcast about Florida, they're, you know, and I, it's funny because when they won tonight, I felt this sense of kinship with their fan base, they faced the same insults, oh, all four fans care, you know, those sorts of comments. - Oh, that's a little reallocation. - Yeah, yeah. - The reallocation worse than the coyotes. - Yeah, went through years and years of horrible, horrible teams, but, you know, in the end, you know, they had, they were committed and they made it work and they wanted a winning team and that happened and it makes me sad watching that tonight. It's, you know, the first Stanley Cup we're watching get awarded without the coyotes being a part of the league anymore. And it makes me sad knowing that that day, which seemed far away anyway, given the state of just the team and where they were in the rebuild, but just knowing that that potential is farther and farther away and so much more uncertain than it ever was before. And it's just really sad. - Yeah, look, I know there's a lot of, this is a lightning rod, this topic because when we talk about other potential ownership groups, there are people out there who say that it's just a pipe dream, it's a joke. There's no real ownership groups. There's never been a real group that stepped forward in the past and there won't be in the future. I understand that sentiment. And listen, while I know that there are two groups interested right now in expansion in Arizona, you never know, I know because I've spoken to them, but you never know how serious these groups are both in intention and in financial commitment until they actually enter the formal process and we see what they're all about. Listen, we thought a couple of these groups that were coming in in the past might be solutions. We thought Alex Morello was gonna be a solution because he was a billionaire. Look how that turned out. It's really hard, I wanna go back to talking about betting ownership groups. I can't imagine it's an easy process, right? To find the right people. And there are a lot of good owners around professional sports, so you can find them, but we've been sold a bill of goods here a couple of times in the past. So even when someone comes in and I do think someone will come in eventually, will we really know at that point? We may not know for several years until we've seen how they operate if we have a stable ownership group finally. One thing I will say though, and I hope it's the case and I know this sounds just maybe two pipe dreamish, maybe I'm just living in a fantasy world. I hope Shane Dones associated with one of these groups. I really hope he has a role in the future of Arizona hockey. I think that sort of thing is important. I think you need, you don't have to have a local owner, but you have to have local ties. And whoever comes in should have those sorts of relationships. You should be talking to the people that matter. In the past, it was guys like, you should have talked to Senator John McCain, you should have talked to Jerry Colangelo to get a sense. You need to be in touch with the civic leaders here. You need to develop those relationships if you want it to succeed. - Yeah, there's a lot of questions, Craig. Well, first of all, I want to address the Shane Dones thing. I think that that would be the easiest way for people to embrace a team returning here. But on the subject of embracing a team returning, there's a lot of questions about, and you might not have the answer, about Alex Morello. All he did was get rid of the hockey team and the players and the hockey ops and staff. But what happens now to the logo, the name, the trademark? This was a unique situation in which the Arizona counties were deactivated. Does that now just belong to the NHL? Is it still a deactivated franchise? Like, how does this all unfold? - Don't have answers to that yet, sorry. There's a lot more reporting to be done on this story. Listen, what Bill Daley told me in the past was he owns, he didn't know how to answer that. He owns the rights until he doesn't. Listen, if Alex Morello goes to the league within the week, maybe he has already, actually, and renounces his rights, I don't know what has to be done contractually for them to move forward and take back the right to the coyotes. Listen, I don't even know if a new group comes in if they even want to be the coyotes anymore. If it's Shane, I could see that happening. If it's somebody else, they might say, you know what, there's a whole lot of bad juju with the coyotes, I'm not sure I want that name back anymore. There's a lot of those questions, but first, we have to wait for an official announcement from the league. I doubt it's forthcoming quickly. The NHL draft is later this week. The NHL really doesn't like to upstage its marquee events with this. - Sorry Gary. - Yeah, I'm sure they're really happy about this coming out right now, but I wouldn't expect an announcement quickly on this, but when it comes that some of those details will come out, I would assume that all of that would revert back to the league at that point, but I don't have the actual agreement. I don't know what all the details of it say, so I can't say for certain. - As for potential new ownership groups, you mentioned that they exist, two things, though. A, you gotta put your money where your mouth is because $2 billion, not a lot of people have that kind of money and obviously it's usually a group of people. But second of all, yes, we've seen two expansions in the last decade, which has been a lot with both Vegas and Seattle, but even at the NHL draft this year, people throwing out Cincinnati's interested and you hear the usuals, the Quebec's, the Houston's, the Atlanta's, all of that. So now with Alex Morello, he was sort of at the front of the line as far as getting a team back. Now Arizona kind of just goes in the pot and I believe that with Gary Bettman, as long as Gary Bettman's part of the league, I know he believes in Arizona as a hockey market and I, and I know a lot of people here in the chat believe that hockey belongs in the desert. You can buy the shirt now, go pHnext.com, pHnextlocker.com, I'm wearing it. But now they're gonna be fighting with other markets and there's already people in the chat ranking, what they think the potential market ranking would be. Atlanta one, Houston two, Phoenix three, whatever it may be. And I think that's the risk. So while there is definitely a chance that a different group rather than Morello could be the fastest way, you also can't say that for sure either. And I think that's the most uncomfortable and disappointing thing to swallow right now is just the uncertainty and question marks that this whole situation leaves us with. - Any group coming in needs an arena. It's the same issue we've had here for so long. Now, I understand the thinking that Alex Morello had this exclusive rights and he could reactivate the franchise, but I'm gonna tell you now and it's not gonna be a surprise. There were very few people who thought he was going to get it done. I think even the league had a sense of the political opposition that existed here to Alex Morello getting this done. I think they knew this was going to fail. I don't think they'll ever say that, but I think they knew. Well, a lot of people knew they would fail. So to say, oh, he's our best chance. I'm not sure he ever was because I don't think there was ever much support for it. But again, anybody who comes in has to build an arena. That's not cheap. You talked about the expansion fee. That's not cheap. There's a massive cost that goes into bringing a team back to Arizona. And then when you look at the history of this market, it's certainly at least gonna give a group pause to say, wow, it's been nothing but problematic since they got there. So do I really want to do this? Do I want to spend a billion plus on an expansion franchise and then build an arena? And then with the expansion draft being what it is now, not like Vegas, I'm still gonna have to wait several years before I can win. So I'm not gonna have a winning product. That's a lot of commitment. I mean, personally, I think expansion franchises are overvalued in the NHL. I think they're overpriced. I don't think they're worth what they're paying, but guys are paying it. So who's the NHL to say, no, if someone's willing to pay that price? I'm not sure that Kite's were anything close to a billion. They might've been worth half of that or maybe a little more than half, but fees are what they are. So whoever comes in had better have really, really deep pockets. - Yeah, whoever does decide to take a gander here in this market needs to do a quick saging of the area before they go on that endeavor, Craig. - We have lots of thoughts for them, too, on where they should build. I mean, and listen, I can tell you that the groups that I have spoken to, they weren't looking at this Northeast Phoenix site. They understood that you need to be more centrally located. What I liked about this site for Alex Morel with the ancillary developments was, this is high-end area, right? You can bring, you know, this is Leah Merrill's neighborhood, actually. You can bring the Chanels of the world. (laughing) - Oh, the Rodeo Drive of the Valley? - Yes, I'm like Tempe. This is probably the Rodeo Drive of Arizona because it's high rent district. And that means you can charge greater fees. You probably could have done really well with a real estate development in this area, but I'm not sure other groups are looking quite in that area. I think more centrally located like Tempe was is good. And again, if somebody can figure it out on the Salt River Pima Maricopa land, I think that's a great location. And while the lack of ability to build residences, I get that from a real estate development, I'm not sure that the sports book matters that much. And I'm not even sure that land ownership matters that much when you can't have a lease for like 99 years. - This episode is brought to you by our good friends at NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. I'm sure by now you've all gotten back into your Sunday routines, but they could be even better. With NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV, you get the most live NFL games all in one place, every game, every Sunday. And you can even watch up to four different games at once with Multi-View, one of my favorite inventions of this decade. It's exactly what you need to catch all the action. Make your Sundays more magical. And also, YouTube TV is great. I got it this year. It's awesome. Sign up now at YouTube.com/BS, Device and Content Restrictions Apply, Local and National Games on YouTube TV, NFL Sunday Ticket for Out of Market Games excludes digital-only games. - Hey, it's Kaylee Cuoco for Priceline, ready to go to your happy place for a happy price? Well, why didn't you say so? Just download the Priceline app right now and save up to 60% on hotels. So whether it's Cousin Kevin's Kazoo concert in Kansas City, go Kevin, or Becky's Bachelor at Bash in Bermuda, you never have to miss a trip ever again. So download the Priceline app today. Your savings are waiting. ♪ Go to your happy place for a happy price ♪ ♪ Got your happy price, Priceline ♪ - Craig, it might be late for us, but it's even later for this next person calling in live from Florida. - Oh, he's in the bar. - He's in the bar. - He's breaking. - Cheers, cheers to everyone. And good news from Arizona. Like, and I know there are people that are concerned that this is a bad thing. It's actually a good thing. Like people are like, oh, there's never gonna be a team again. This is actually a good thing. And this, by the way, this is the... We're gonna take a little tour here. I know you guys want to talk arena, but we're gonna take a tour live in Fort Lauderdale. Okay, we're gonna start with Emily Kapplin. - Emily Kapplin's cameo. - Emily Kapplin. - Emily Kapplin, Cheers, Emily Kapplin. We're gonna walk around to the ESPN bar right now. We're gonna want to see who else we can see. Oh, we're P K go. - This is classic. - Okay. Oh, we're gonna get some really good Dave Jackson. Jack's? - I'm gonna say hi to everybody. Dave Jackson. - Hello. - Dave Jackson. - What? - I think it's okay. - Wow. - Look at the cameo. - Dave Lee. - Ray Pararo. (laughing) - Ray Lee. - Oh, this is like we're at the ESPN after party here in Fort Lauderdale. And by the way, I know you're talking arena, but we were in Edmonton after game six. Streets were in Fuego. People honking their horns. Absolutely bad shit, crazy. You come to Fort Lauderdale. It's Monday in Fort Lauderdale. Like there's literally nobody here. Like this is nothing. Like it is so, it is so frickin' disappointing. Like, like there's nobody out. There's, I wish PK, PK just left. I wish the CK was a lot more fun than I am. So I'm sorry I missed the arena talk. I, Craig Morgan absolutely nailed it today. Unbelievable reporting by Craig Morgan. I can't wait to get home. - Yeah, that's the door. - Yeah, that's the door. - That's the door. - That's the door. - Oh, there's, there's PK. - All right. - Yeah, we'll go, yeah, we'll go, we'll go, wait, wait, wait. PK, PK, little way, PK. - Hey. - What's up, buddy? - What's up, buddy? - Little PK. Little PK out. - DD, what's the word on the street? I don't, I don't, like there's a very solid chance nobody is talking about this 'cause the family pushes hand, yeah. - No, I threw it on there and there's a lot of HK. I'm not like, like didn't, like didn't that, a lot of people said didn't that already happen? Like people are like, no one really cares right now. But I think that, well, I think the timing really bad that it happens like now. Like you're in the Stanley Cup final, game seven and now Morello decides, like he's gonna pull them in. Do it tomorrow, maybe tomorrow. - Would be good. But in all seriousness, I do think this is great. I, and I know there's so many nays here. It's like, there are no groups. There's nobody there. It's never coming back. - People are just wrong. - There are people interested. There are people with money. There are groups that wanna bring hockey back. The league wants hockey back there, desperately. They want hockey in Arizona. So I do believe it's gonna come back. And the best thing that has ever happened is Alex Morello walking away now versus 18 months from now. Three years from now, five years from now. All of those things happening today, I think it's really, really sincerely good for a prayer in Arizona hockey. - Hey, we gotta ask you, we got you here. What'd you think? What'd you think of game seven? What'd you think of this series? - You know what, the truth is the Florida Panthers played Florida Panther hockey in game seven because I think that, I think the anxiety and stress finally, they got rid of it. They just wanna play it. That's the team that played games one through three. Florida Panthers can defend, and they defend it tonight. I think what it's gonna be interesting tomorrow in the next day is when you start hearing about the injuries, Conor McCabe is really injured. Dry settles, it took a lot of heat from media. He's really injured. Like, dude probably shouldn't be playing. And I think you're gonna hear those stories over the next few days, and you're gonna, oh my goodness, like, I get it now, why? I think people have to really temper their expectations of players in this long of a playoff season because there's so many guys playing hurt right now, and you just don't know what they're dealing with. Florida was the better team thrilled for all direct and large, and thrilled for Nick Cousins. Like, a Chuck family as everybody saw. It's absolutely phenomenal. There's so many Arizona connections here, 'cause it was really good to see that happen. I'm so happy I just wish they could've done it a week ago. Like, is that a, like, really? Like, but no, it's really, it was a great game. The vibe was unreal. Sean de Paz, former PhD next on the ice after the Stanley Cup final taking video. Like, that's phenomenal. Like, it is, it really felt, I will say this, the hockey community is so small, and so close and so tight that you just, everybody embraces it together. Yeah, it's been an unbelievable experience. I know I joke about getting home, and it's really hard. This has been phenomenal. It's been so much fun. So glad I got to do this. I can't wait to get back to Arizona, but I wanna, Craig, I want you to start reporting on who that next group is. Who are the money guys bringing this team back? Because I believe this is the fastest path back, and it is really good news for Arizona hockey fans. Well, P.D., we will talk to you later this week, and we'll talk more about what we saw tonight. On the hockey side, of course, it feels so classic that we come together here, and the Stanley Cup was just handed out, and we're talking about zoning and land. Very on land. Stanley Cup gets awarded tonight. We're talking about frickin' zoning. Way to go, Mr. Morello. But thanks for you guys, and let me jump on for a few minutes. I really do miss the gang. I wanna get home, and we'll see you guys, I think, in Vegas next, I'm not quite sure. I land, I'm home for less than 24 hours. And my wife's not that happy about that, by the way. - Well, thanks for taking us to the ESPN after part. - Yeah. - Cheers, everybody. Thanks, and I miss Arizona, and Craig, thanks for your hard work. We really appreciate everything you do, and without you doing what you do, we wouldn't know what the hell's going on there. So, thank you, Craig. - Very true. - All right, everybody in a couple of days. - Name travels. - See you, everybody in a couple of days. - All right, bye, Petey. My goodness. By the way, if you haven't read Craig's full article, if the website is not still broken by the influx of everybody who you're trying to read it, you can read it now, gophinex.com. It should be the first story. On the site goes into a lot more detail, and obviously, we will be talking more about this as we learn more, hopefully we can answer some more people's questions that they have in the days and weeks to come, because Petey next hockey is here to cover the story along with others, league and local and college stories as well. So, stick with us. A couple of super chats I wanna make sure we get to. We'll go down the list, starting at the top with Ty, who sent us $4.99, thank you, Ty, and said we're free. John sent us a $5 super chat, saying my Stanley cup, Coyote stands, I'm so sorry. John sent us $9.99. How many beers has Petey had since hearing this news? Well, we just saw one of them. Craig, weren't you supposed to be writing about the Cardinals, haha? - No, here's the good news with this out of the way. I think I'll be free for a little while. Obviously, I'm gonna try and find out who those other groups are that are pursuing it, but this is a long process, Leah. It's not like there's gonna be constant hockey news now in the desert. This is some closure here is what this is. This really closed the chapter. The team's gone, now the owner's gone. So, now we start from scratch. I'll keep an eye on it, but, Johnny Venerable, Bob Rock, thanks for your support. Damon Farrell, thanks for your support, because I've had one eye on the Coyotes and one eye on the Cardinals. Now I get to dive into Cardinals full time. And I'm actually enjoying it so far. I know you don't wanna talk about Cardinals here, but it's, I'm starting to enjoy the beating. It's always great to just tell new stories, tell fresh stories and have a franchise that I can cover that looks like it's on the upswing and is actually gonna stay in the Valley. - No threats of relocation there. - That's the location. - Mina News, none of that nonsense. - All right. Faisal sends us $5, woo, awesome. Thank you. The Extra Shift podcast said, I'd love to say I'm shocked, but sadly, I called it maybe a few weeks earlier than expected, though. Arizona deserves better. I agree, but, you know, the cat's out of the bag now. Will said, the most bittersweet of days still along road ahead. You're absolutely right, Will. Wildly said, is he also walking out on the road runners? - No. - No. - No, gotta remain the owner of the road runners. As I reported earlier today, the runners will not play any games at Mallet. Now they'll play all 36 of their home games in Tucson. The team later confirmed that he's gonna keep ownership of them and my guess is that eventually, the road runners are moving to Reno into his new arena, which again, I think opens in the fall of 2026, but we'll see. I think they're on the hook for three more years with Tucson. So that's probably the longest that the road owners are gonna remain in Tucson. - Wendy City-Hockey says, "Does the history of the coyote is now go to Utah?" Wendy City, these are questions that we will pursue, but we do not know just yet. - Again, the league won't even answer these questions until this is official. - Yeah. GMac91, diehard abs fan here. Leah, Craig, PD, PHNX community in the Valley deserve so much better. I hope the coyotes return soon. It doesn't hockey forever. Really appreciate the support. - What do people think, by the way, and you can tell us in the chat as well, should they keep the coyote's name? If it's Shane Dolan, I get it, but if it's someone else, should they consider maybe calling it something else? And if they call it something else, it's gotta be a plural nickname, by the way. - Okay. - Maybe if we're gonna be mant on this already, but it's gotta be a plural. - Don't tell me what's- - Sure about that, Craig. - Oh, God, who is producing tonight? (laughing) - By the way, shout out, Eric, for jumping on this emergency pod at 10 o'clock at night on a Monday, appreciate you, Eric. And speaking of, Eric, Craig, and Bo got together earlier today for a Southwest bias episode in which they talked about Morello in this whole situation. So definitely go check that out on the PHNX Sports YouTube channel in the Southwest bias playlist. - By the way, not gonna say that we manifested this, but we might have played a massive role in this happening. - I don't know the headline you wanted, and I was like, I'm not sure we can do that yet. Yeah, you're in Stinks, we're good. You're in Stinks, we're good. (laughing) - Oh, man. All right. Sharon sent us 4.99. What does this mean for the future? The coyotes in franchise and history. Can they keep the coyotes name? If someone did step up, again, something that we will find out soon. Shawn said, "A'am's new shirt. I sure as shit wanna make money." Bye. (laughing) - Oh, boy. Well, hopefully he feels good about what he's walking away with. - Listen, I will say this, Alex Morello. I know people, a lot of people were just like, oh, he's just gonna take the money and walk. I don't think that's what was at play here. I do think he was trying in his own way to make this happen. I do think he wanted to build an arena and get a team back. I really do believe that it's just how he went about it that ultimately led to failure. - Yep, Moose Tree said, "Just my contribution to PD's. Beer fund, thank you. We will pass that along to him." Blue Leaf 16, leaves fan here, whose second favorite team is the coyotes. Thank you all for staying with us and continuing to cover hockey in the desert. Appreciate you, appreciate that. And we will continue to cover hockey in the desert 'cause they're still hockey here. We have ASU, the road runners are in Tucson for now. There's tons of great hockey stories here, so stick with us and we'll continue to talk about Arizona hockey. Wildly Coyote, thanks for all the great non-hockey reporting. Craig was always my go-to for Coyote's news. Mine too, wildly. Appreciate that. Andy Mann said, "Shark's fan here. Hockey belongs in the desert." And without any involvement from Morello, great job reporting on this. As always, land policy expert Craig, I'm sure he wishes he wasn't one. - Far from it. (laughing) - Today, Craig was talking to me about some zoning thing and he was, and I just said, Craig, I just can't. - I know, like, like, I'm not talking about this for a while. I got some chirp, like, oh, you'll never acknowledge that this zoning was an issue. I'm like, dude, we've been reporting on this for multiple months in print and on the show. And I did get a little support with him in saying, going through, being uninformed is no way to go through life. So, we're doing a lot of reporting on this. And I'm not saying that, again, I'm not an expert by any means on all this stuff that's external to sports, but it's just part of the gig when you cover the coyotes, at least it has been to this point. - Yep, easy sports, guys said. I'm so happy that we can finally get my team back. This is so much more than hockey. I love this team. My nephew will have a team to fall in love with the game. Apologies, I'm really emotional. Well, thank you for your super chat. We appreciated it and I know you're not alone and feeling emotional. And, you know, I'm sure this news has brought up a lot of different feelings for a lot of different people as we saw earlier. Craig, is there anything else you want to discuss before we get out of here and get to bed? - Are we going to do a show Thursday? - Yep, we're still going to do a show Thursday, live at 11. There'll be plenty to talk about, I'm sure. We might even still do it. What was that? - It might be something to sing about. - Oh, there might be a song. - It might be. Like, specialty, tune in for that on Thursday. We'll probably still do an audio pod tomorrow. We also have draft coverage coming this weekend. So a lot coming up. Make sure you're subscribed to the PhNX Sports YouTube channel and make sure you're subscribed to PhNX Hockey wherever you get your podcasts as well, 'cause we do drop weekly audio-only shows so you don't want to miss those for sure. And make sure you're a die-hard as well. Great chats in our die-hard only Discord tonight throughout the game. It was great to see the celebration in there for Oliver Ekman-Larsen. And then I do want to note, I think it was Luke Lipinski tweeted something about it. It's just amazing to see the Coyote's fan base who suffered so much just coming together tonight to celebrate seeing Oliver Ekman-Larsen winning the Stanley Cup. And that just, I think, speaks volumes about this fan base. And yeah, just congratulations to OEL, to the Kachek family, to Nick Cousins. I think anyone who's a former Coyote and especially someone like OEL will always hold a place in this fan base's heart. And it's just really cool to see the Coyote's community rise above even when there's been a lot of BS for this group. - As a people in the Discord, I'm gonna catch up with O. That was a fun moment to watch him win the cup, raise the cup. OEL's just such a good, good person always was. Anybody that was around this team that got a chance to know him will tell you that. And with what he went through, and listen, I know, again, everything's nuanced, right? OEL's play was part of the reason for his departure here, but he was in a really good situation in Florida. I thought he played really well for them, really well in this cup final. And he's got a championship now. So I will, I promise you, I will catch up with OEL and have a story on him at some point soon. - Awesome, great to hear it. And yes, become a diehard, join our Discord, get access to diehard only content on the website, get 20% off merch, free shirt or hat when you sign up plus 20% off. On events, just so many great reasons to become a diehard. Sincerely, everybody here, it's late on the West Coast, it's late on the East Coast, wherever you're watching, we sincerely appreciate you. Please hit the like button on this video. Couple more super chats before we wrap. Tyler said, Craig from working with this past year, thank you so much for everything. So happy with this news, you know how much this means to me. And T.O. Wildcat said, okay, still looks to you guys for land policy and zoning information. We'll try our best. Thanks to Hockey Guy for showing up at Chicken and Pickle. Of course, by the way, pickleball tournament next month, July 27th, it's gonna be lit at Chicken and Pickle. So I hope everyone signs up more info on our website, gophinex.com/events. I think that's it for us tonight, Craig. Great reporting as always. We appreciate you all for being here, whatever happens next in this saga. P.H. next hockey will be here to cover it. And we appreciate you sticking with us, you know, throughout all of these crazy changes. It's unbelievable to think what's happened over the last couple of months here. And this is just another one of those things. So make sure you follow us on Twitter @Kregus Morgan, @LeaMeryl, @esPetersHockey. You can follow Eric @EricRuby as well. And make sure you follow our show @PHNX_Hockey. Enjoy the rest of your Monday night, everybody. And we will talk to you all soon.
