[sureLoss]

ESPN has an article about how the whole move to Salt Lake came to be behind the scenes

https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/...e-arizona-utah

Some interesting quotes:

The team's creative accounting was a constant source of concern around the league. There were incidents over the years of the Coyotes skimping on money. The Coyotes would try to stay at lesser hotels than the collective bargaining agreement stipulates. Ownership tried cutting corners when they could, like removing the printer and copying machine from the coaches' room.

Multiple sources told ESPN that the Coyotes were either late paying their hotel bills or sometimes just crossed out the total and paid a different amount. Other sources indicated local businesses would come to the team seeking payments, would be offered a fraction of what was owed and then would be negotiated down to take less than what was actually owed.

On March 6, Bettman and deputy commissioner Bill Daly spoke with Meruelo and asked him, point-blank, about the future of the Coyotes. Meruelo thought they were asking if he wanted to sell the team and indicated that he wasn't interested.

"Can you look your players in the eyes and tell them when there's going to be an arena built?" they asked.

"No," said Meruelo, "I can't."

"It's not fair to the players, to their families and to hockey operations to not know how long it will take to build this arena," was the response.

But the land auction itself might now become a problem. One source familiar with the process heard from some potential bidders that "didn't want to be the ones that chased the Coyotes" out of the market.

"Now that the Coyotes have effectively chased themselves out of Arizona, that's a prime piece of property. So I think there will be other bidders," the source said.