The Arizona Coyotes’ arena situation has been talked about at length from fans and media pundits over the past few months. This story has really picked up even more steam even more so over the past few weeks since it was reported that Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith formally asked the NHL to initiate the expansion process and bring a team to Salt Lake City. While there is no direct evidence to say that this impacts the Coyotes’ performance in any way, they are 0-5-1 since the report came out which coach André Tourigny was asked about after practice on Wednesday. 021424_CoachMediaPresser “It’s noise, you need to deal with that,” Tourigny said. “It’s the professional athlete life. Contract negotiations, trade rumors, in our case those rumors, it’s part of the job and one day it will be something else. We want to be a championship team and one day we will have other distractions. We need to learn to live with it. I’m not saying it’s a success so far, but let’s get better.” All of these rumors must have an effect on the players as multiple rumors are coming out regarding the possibility of relocation for the Coyotes which has major implications on all of their lives. Tourigny also refused to deny that it didn’t bother them at all, rather he just downplayed the situation saying it’s a part of the business and something they must deal with just like any other distractions. Yes, these sorts of distractions do sometimes arise for professional athletes, but also note that the constant uncertainty and rumors surrounding the organization is certainly not easy to deal with at all. There are other factors at play for why Arizona have gone on a six-game losing streak. However, the fact that this topic of relocation has come up more now than throughout the entirety of the season is undeniably clear. Just like the Coyotes have done basically since arriving to the Valley in 1996, they will once again be forced to deal with all this outside noise about the future of the franchise and play hockey which is a lot easier said than done.
