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Originally Posted by Wolven
Right, so it has taken how long and how much money loss for the Coyotes to get to the point where maybe if they can keep things going for another 5 years of competitive low-budget hockey they will finally build a fan base...
From when the Coyotes landed in 1996 to now (2011) they have made the playoffs 7 out of 14 seasons. Sure, they haven't won a round yet but after 15 years and who knows how many hundreds of millions of dollars in losses you'd have to think that a grass roots program might be more effective than trying to brute force hockey into the Phoenix market.
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I don't think they had the ownership they've required though to propser. The way the organization is managed from the top down is extremely important. A recent example of going from a bad owner to a good one is the Blackhawks. The fanbase was jaded against the previous owner whom apparently managed the team in an odd way in some ways. When his son took over, the fanbase has regain confidence in the ownership. Granted that happen around the same time they get Towes and Kane along with other good players to move away from the lower tier of teams to a Stanley Cup winner within a couple years. So winning ultimately brought the fans back, but that comes from good ownership that wants to build a winning club. Coyotes ownership in the past didn't seem to have the same desire and as a result lost the attention of the market due to poor ice play for a lengthy period.
Quote:
Originally Posted by woob
Seriously? You don't think the oh, what, 15 years they've had already might be an indication that hockey isn't for that market? Sure, not all of those 15 years have been as good as the last couple, performance wise. But, if you can't build a fan base in 15 years, another 5-10 isn't going to help, in my opinion.
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My paragraph basically response to this. Ownership and management didn't do enough to build team loyalty within the community. I don't know the whole story of how thing were operated, but I assume the lack of consistent competitiveness and no true superstar players to follow aside from Doan (bad drafting or not keeping players?), the Coyotes just never warranted attention for such a long time. This is probably the most attention they've gotten since they've moved there.