(Photo: Kevin Carlson/ flickr)

Tonight the Glendale City Council met to decide on the deal that the future of the Phoenix Coyotes hinges on. As of late, a majority of the council has supported the deal. However, Mayor Elaine Scruggs and Councilwoman Alvarez oppose the deal. Interim City Manager Horatio Skeete has also stated his opinion on the subject as well, he does not support this deal. Those that oppose the deal state that by agreeing with the deal the city would have to lay off employees in order to cut $17 million within five years.

Skeete has stated that the city would lose money with whatever deal they decide tonight. If the deal goes through the city is going to owe Greg Jamison about $15 million a year, this will ultimately hurt the city. If the deal does not go through however, the city will lose the foot-traffic that the Coyotes provide.

The floor was opened for residents, and non-residents alike, to comment on the lease deal. What interested me about this was the number of non-residents that took the floor to provide their opinions on the deal. The majority of these non-residents were Coyotes fans, obviously these fans want the deal. What occurred to me was that these fans were from all over the Valley of the Sun, from Surprise to Tempe. These fans trek to games, these fans spend money in Glendale solely based on how far they have to travel to get to games.

Councilwoman Joyce Clark made a great statement tonight that “this issue has been talked to death”. She held on to a newspaper article of the business section of the newspaper from December 2003. She’s had that article in her office for almost nine years. She did not outright state her opinion on this deal, though it seemed like she was in favor of the deal.

Councilman Manny Martinez went next to talk about the agreement. He has supported keeping the Coyotes. He has stated that this is best for Glendale in the longrun.

Coucilwoman Alvarez went next. She noted that the city cannot afford this deal. She further stated that with the city being 1.3 billion dollars in debt it was not a smart deal. Alvarez was not present for the meeting, however she was on the phone. She openly stated that she does not support this deal, and stated that she cannot believe the city got into the position they are in.

The next council member to speak was Yvonne Knaack. Knaack stated that the issue was not a “sports issue” it was an “anchor tenant issue”. Coucilwoman Knaack made point that not only were city jobs important, but Westgate jobs were equally as important. She thinks that the deal with Jamison is the best one that Glendale will receive. She stated that she will vote in favor of the agreement.

Finally, Mayor Elaine Scruggs talked next. Once the first words left her mouth, it was obvious of her decision. She stated that her opinion was to side with the small businesses against the deal. She said that she supported people “in other uniforms than Coyotes’ uniforms.”

The deal was a 4-2 in favor of Greg Jamison’s deal with the City of Glendale.

Needless to say, fans rejoiced. I might have squealed as well. As a native Phoenician, and hockey fan in a non-traditional hockey market this vote excited me. The Coyotes’ future has been undecided for over a year, and it is finally being brought to a rest.

(Photo: DJ Lein/ flickr)

ASU brought devastation this weekend to Oklahoma. Beginning with Central Oklahoma on Thursday night and completing the weekend sweep with Oklahoma Friday and Saturday.

The Sun Devils are 18-0 and remain at the Number 1 seat.

Junior goalie Joe D’Elia played superbly this weekend. He started Thursday with a 4-0 shutout. D’Elia stopped the 12 shots that found themselves near his net, including an almost overwhelming 3-on-1.

As the Sun Devils went up against Number 6 ranked Oklahoma on Friday and Saturday both games ended 6-1. Friday night all six goals were scored by six different Devils. But with the first hat trick of the season, Brian McGinty scored three of the six goals Saturday night.

While the Sun Devils were making milestones this weekend, the Arizona Ice Cats were not faring so well.

Though they began their weekend with a 3-1 win over Oklahoma Thursday night, their three-game win streak was stopped Friday night by Central Oklahoma.

Central Oklahoma ended up sweeping them this weekend. Though the Ice Cats beat Number 6 Oklahoma, they fell twice to Number 18 Central Oklahoma.

While the ASU Devils remain undefeated at 18-0, the UA Cats are 8-9 this season. Both teams are working hard and finally get a weekend of rest for Thanksgiving.

(Photo: Bridget Samuels/ flickr)

It looks like everyone’s favorite Twitter personality has signed to play with the Elite Ice Hockey League for the Cardiff Devils. The Coyotes forward was obviously looking for a team to play on as this whole CBA bologna continues.

Paul Bissonnette’s signing was made official via the Cardiff Devil’s Twitter. Though BizNasty has not mentioned anything about the signing on his twitter, he has mentioned other quips about his days.

My personal favorite was a tweet from yesterday. Biz made an appearance on an Edmonton radio station and mentioned “if anyone cares. You probably don’t. I’m so lonely.” Poor thing. He obviously needed a hug.

I think Paul’s departure to the UK is foreshadowing to the amount of hockey players that will be heading overseas. At this point, the clock is ticking down on the 2012-2013 season and players are starting to get anxious.

But, I say major kudos to Bissonnette, I wish him the very best!

(Photo: Doug Kerr/ flickr)

The Phoenix Coyotes are feeling the effects of the lockout on all levels of their organization. This morning it was let known that Tim Bulmer, the team’s media relations manager was let go today for reasons due to the NHL lockout.

Phoenix is still owned by the league and has been since 2009. However, Greg Jamison and the league have been working on finishing this sale.

In the mean time, the club is going to be subject to layoffs and budget cuts due to CBA negotiations. Since neither side can seem to figure out how to split the NHL’s revenue pile this lockout is going to get longer and longer.

I feel that the longer this lockout carries on, the more that organization employees will be subject to cuts. This is not good for anyone. The Yotes organization lost their media relations manager. My first thought was, who is going to relate the media?!

I may start running out of soup to cry into, does anyone want to donate some?

(Photo: DJ Lein/flickr)

As the lockout continues, and will end hopefully maybe November 30, the hockey programs in Arizona are in full swing.

Arizona State University remains undefeated with a 9-0-0 record, putting them in the Number 2 spot right behind Ohio University. The University of Arizona Ice Cats are a little behind them in the Number 17 spot with a 5-5-0, according to the ACHA coaches poll.

This weekend the teams will take each other on in Tucson for the first time this season, their previous match-up was on the Devils’ home turf. This will be the second weekend of home games for the Ice Cats, after splitting their series against Eastern Michigan in a set of games that left me pulling my hair out.

While UA has been struggling through the season, nothing seems to be able to stop ASU. After beating both Eastern Michigan and Colorado State the Devils seem to be sitting pretty. They outshot Eastern Michigan 65-15 but came off to a slow and sloppy start against Colorado State. Their 24 penalty minutes will surely play against them when up against the Ice Cats on Friday and Saturday night.

The UA Ice Cats are looking for the wins after suffering two losses against ASU earlier in the season. If the team can pick themselves up after splitting the series against EMU and focus on their explosiveness and the goalie’s position, the team has a pretty good shot this weekend. However, ASU is on a hot streak and though their penalty minutes may come back to haunt them their goalies are blocking everything in sight.

It will be a battle of wills this weekend and I encourage anyone in the Tucson area to get down to the Tucson Convention Center at 7:30 Friday night. This series will sure be interesting, and it will definitely take my attentions off crying into my soup.

(Photo: 5of7/ flickr)

The City of Glendale has been creating different scenarios for their city budget. The Coyotes organization’s stay in Glendale caught Mayor Elaine Scruggs’ attention (and here’s where she ends up on my “most wanted” list), Scruggs has been rallying an idea that losing the Yotes could help the city’s budget. It’s okay to collectively gasp, I did too.

I can see where Mayor Scruggs is coming from, if the Coyotes were to stay the city would have to give the team $71 million over a certain time period. Consequently city employees would lose jobs and the city would not be able to provide certain services. But, there’s a catch: this is only the case if the city is to not integrate a tax hike.

If the team stays and Glendale incorporates a tax hike the city would simply need to trim $6 million from their “general fund”. If the team stays and there is no tax hike implemented $29 million would have to be cut out. Now, this tax hike might be a potentially good thing. Its an especially nice thing because if the tax hike is nixed and the team leaves, the city would still need to cut out $23 million.

Coucilwoman Clark has pointed out that even if the Coyotes move, Glendale will still need to pay its debt on the arena. This debt adds up to roughly $10 million a year, so without the Coyotes Glendale will have to find others ways to pay off this debt.

Potentially, if the Coyotes leave there will be a huge hit to the Westgate shopping center.

 David Solotov, who is the vice president for the investment group that owns Westgate, has said that, “We’d like to see the Coyotes stay… We’ve developed a great relationship with them. Our center provides an incredible fan experience, and they certainly draw people to the center.”

Knowing that the Glendale City Council majority would like to keep the Coyotes in Glendale provides a sense of hope. However, this is not exactly something fans want to hear. I know I don’t want to hear this, I’d rather hear that the lockout is over so I can start watching hockey again and stop crying into my soup.

(Photo: Teka England/ flickr)

The Portland Pirates will be partaking in their home opener against the Worchester Sharks tonight (October 19). However, they will not be playing in Portland, they’ll be playing in Lewiston.

The team won’t have a game in Portland until November 2 when they take on the St. John’s IceCaps.

The Sharks are coming off a two game sweep by the Norfolk Admirals, and the Pirates fell to the Adirondack Phantoms 6-3 for their season opener. Both teams are looking to redeem themselves, which should make for a very interesting and intense game.

Being on home ice should push the team, along with the offense that holds Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Ethan Werek. Ekman-Larsson, Werek, and Andy Miele all provided goals for the 6-3 loss to the Phantoms.

Seeing as how this lockout is dragging on I recommend some AHL hockey to anyone who can catch it! With the future of the NHL representing their team’s AHL counterpart, games are sure to be packed with talent.

(Photo: DJ Lein/ flickr)

As most hockey fans are losing their marbles waiting for the NHL season to start, I’m losing my marbles waiting for the UA Ice Cats to finally have a home game.

ASU hockey is undefeated in their season so far, with impressive wins over both Iowa State and Lindenwood University. Arizona State is ranked number 2 only behind Ohio. They’re in place to steal the number 1 ranking from Ohio, which will be very interesting to see unfold. Ohio has won an ACHA Division 1 Title 4 times, whereas ASU has won none.

The UA Ice Cats are not faring as well as the Devils in rankings. But, after traveling to Illinois this weekend, the Cats came away with 2 more wins. UA swept number 11 Illinois. The mostly-freshman team dug deep amidst some roadblocks. The team was missing 3 key players, but nevertheless pulled together and won the series.

With more CBA talks looming in the future, Coyotes fans  (and all hockey fans for that matter) can put some focus on the future of hockey. The Sun Devils take on San Diego State the 19 and 20 of October in Tempe. The Ice Cats are on the road and will face number 1 ranked Ohio in Ohio the 19 and 20 as well.

(Photo: Bridget Samuels/ flickr)

At 23 years old Brett MacLean had hopes of working himself into a full-time position with the Coyotes. He came off a 25 goal season in the AHL with the Portland Pirates and was in great condition.

After about 40 minutes of a pick-up game, he collapsed.

He was having a heart attack. At 23 years old. In Canada, the survival rate for those suffering cardiac arrests outside of hospitals is five percent.

When he dropped, those around him acted quickly. Fellow players performed CPR and a local firefighter retrieved the arena’s AED (an automatic external defibrillator). He was airlifted to a hospital and though his life had been saved he’d never play hockey again. Since the reason behind his sudden heart attack is unknown doctors implanted a defibrillator to monitor his heart.

This defibrillator however will avert his ability to take part in contact sports (I hope everyone knows that hockey is in fact, a contact sport).

Being 23 and never being able to play hockey again, MacLean suffered during his time in the hospital. But is now optimistic in his future off the rink. He plans to enroll in class with the hopes on breaking into the sports industry off the ice.

MacLean’s outright refusal to feel sorry for himself is an inspiration. Though he will never lace his skates up professionally again, Brett has decided to look beyond the rink for his future. Hockey players are some of the toughest athletes, if not the toughest, out there and this story only adds to that case.

(Photo: Bridget Samuels/ flickr)

While Phoenix Coyotes fans were grumbling over the time it was taking Shane Doan to sign a contract with the Yotes, the Doan’s were going through an incredibly painful time. On July 6 Shane got a call that his 7 year old daughter, Karys, had been mauled by a dog.

For six days Karys sat in the hospital and underwent bone reconstruction to her face that required 150 stitches.

At this point, Doan was pondering retirement. Shane Doan being arguably the most loyal man in hockey can obviously be seen as an extremely loyal family man. He was thinking of becoming a full-time dad.

Once Karys was cleared to leave the hospital the family took a trip to their cabin in Kamloops, British Columbia. They enjoyed the solitude and peacefulness on Lake Shuswap.

There, the family healed together. Soon, after celebrating her eighth birthday Karys was soon able to join her three other sibling swimming.

The Doan family had come a long way and though Doan had once seriously considered leaving the game, his family was ready to begin “normal” life again.

I’m pretty sure Shane Doan could not be any more perfect. I am so, so glad that once this lockout ends he’ll be lacing up his skates once more for our desert dogs.