Hockey

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Coyotes winning games, but not fans

By: Jim Matheson

24/11/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

EDMONTON -- As Phoenix Coyotes assistant coach Dave King says, "it's tough to bring a corpse back to life."

Unless it's a movie script, or a hockey story.

The Coyotes are owned by the other 29 NHL teams who are footing their bills (salaries, travel costs) until they find somebody in the desert to take over the orphaned team. They don't have any fans -- six home dates under 10,000, including 5,845 against the Los Angeles Kings on Nov. 2, 6,495 for the Anaheim Ducks on Halloween and 6,899 for the St. Louis Blues on Oct. 15.

They've heard all the jokes about the whole rink being a "Fan and Friends" section and everybody coming to the game in the same cab.

Still the Coyotes are winning more than they're losing on the ice. It's a heartwarming story of this team, that draws better on the road than at home. The people who do show up at Jobing.com Arena are enthusiastic, but there's not many of them.

"Every single athlete has an ego," said captain and Canadian Olympic-team hopeful Shane Doan. "You want to play in front of a full building. You want your fans behind you... but we can't control that. To be a fan of the Coyotes the last few years has been really tough (with the team finishing out of the playoffs) and on top of what happened this summer (bankruptcy court for the team), made it even tougher. If we win enough, we hope they'll come back."

Dave Tippett, who had a few years left on his Dallas Stars contract when he got fired upon the arrival of new general manager Joe Nieuwendyk, dove back into the fire even though from the outside it could have been a train-wreck situation. He could have put his feet up at his cabin in northern Minnesota and watched games on TV, but he's a coach.

"There were probably a few people (in his family) looking for some time off," laughed Tippett, "but I felt it was a good organization... one where you could come in and build something. That outweighed any vacation time I was due. I could see the leadership in the room with Shane, Ed Jovanovski, and I had Matthew Lombardi and Scottie Upshall at the world championship, and we have some real upside with young players. They've got (Mikkel Boedker and Kyle) Turris in the minors, to go with Marty Hanzal, Keith Yandle... good blocks to build with."

Tippett took the job at a late date. He wasn't contacted by the Coyotes until late August after it became clear to general manager Don Maloney that Wayne Gretzky might not come back to coach.

-- Canwest News Service

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 24, 2009 C6

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