According to the Coyotes, the team is staying in Arizona. The franchise felt the need to announce that because on Thursday, a report from Forbes stated that the Coyotes are up for sale “with the idea of [a] buyer eventually moving the team to a new arena in Houston.”
Here’s the team’s response to the report, via Craig Moran of PHNX Sports:
“This is false. Totally false. We’re not selling. We’re not moving. The Coyotes are 100 percent committed to playing in Arizona.”
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman also said that the report is “completely false.”
While the team says it is planning on staying put in the state, they will have to move to a new arena. In August, the city of Glendale, Ariz. announced it was opting out of the lease agreement that makes Gila River Arena the home of the Coyotes.
So even though the Coyotes ownership says they want to stay put, right now the team does not have home ice for the 2022-23 season.
“We are thankful to the NHL and Arizona Coyotes for being a part of the Glendale community for the past 18 years,” Glendale city manager Kevin Phelps said in a statement back in August. “The decision to not renew the operating agreement with the Coyotes was not made overnight or in a vacuum. We carefully weighed input from key stakeholders, our expert economist, our arena management firm and our city council.”
