Former Glendale mayor Elaine Scruggs would like a word with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman. And the Arizona Coyotes.
With the long-term future of the Coyotes again in doubt after Bettman said earlier in the week that the club "must have a new arena location to succeed," Scruggs wrote a letter Thursday to the president of the Arizona State Senate, Steve Yarbrough, and the Speaker of the Arizona State House of Representatives, J.D. Mesnard, in which she called out Bettman, the NHL, and the club for misleading the Arizona Legislature and insulting "the community I love."
Here's an excerpt:
A great deal of fast-talking and fuzzy math has come from Bettman, (owner Andrew) Barroway and (team president Anthony) LeBlanc, but their message cannot be more clear: in their minds the Coyotes' lack of success is Glendale's fault. Disregard the fact that the team ranks last in the NHL in hockey spending, continually trades away top talent while it annually "builds for the future," and spends next to nothing to market the team. I will say what they will not: the Coyotes position at the bottom of the standings is a leadership problem, not a location problem.
Scruggs served as Glendale's mayor from 1993-2013, and had the job when the Gila River Arena was opened in 2003, with $200 million in taxpayer contributions. She's clearly disturbed by the fact the league and team are asking for another "$225 million in public funding for another new arena" in either downtown Phoenix or the eastern suburbs of the city. In other words, far from Glendale.
Bettman re-affirmed his commitment to the Coyotes and the Phoenix area after his contentious comments, but hockey's future remains on thin ice - as always, it seems. Currently, the club has a year-to-year lease agreement with the city to play in Glendale, after a long-term lease agreement was shredded in 2015.
Barroway is the majority shareholder of the Coyotes, and was approved by the NHL in late 2014, after a group led by LeBlanc bought the team out of bankruptcy.
"The truth is that the Coyotes have a world-class, taxpayer-funded arena that is designed for hockey and is only 12 years old," Scruggs wrote in the closing paragraphs of her letter. "They have a City Council and City Manager ready to work with them to achieve an equitable long-term lease."
Arizona will miss the playoffs again in 2017, and that, Scruggs says, is the issue. Put a good team on the ice, and the fans will come, no matter where the arena is.
You can read the entire letter at azcentral.com.
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