HARTFORD, Conn. — The NHL’s Arizona Coyotes may soon have a new home, and Gov. Ned Lamont and Mayor Luke Bronin would like it to be Hartford.
Voters in Arizona rejected a proposal for a new arena in Tempe on Tuesday, leaving the future of the franchise in doubt. After the vote, Lamont reached out to the NHL and requested a meeting with Commissioner Gary Bettman, according to Lamont’s press secretary David Bednarz.
“Governor Lamont has reached out to the NHL and requested [the meeting] because he wants to emphasize how serious Hartford and Connecticut are about hosting a team. The governor believes this is a great market for the NHL, particularly because Connecticut has thousands of hockey fans who remain passionate about the beloved Whalers and are ready and eager to support and rally behind a team. The governor looks forward to highlighting these points with league officials.”
It’s been 26 years since the Hartford Whalers last took the ice at the then-Civic Center in downtown Hartford.
On Thursday, Hartford mayor Luke Bronin had some fun with the news on Twitter, taking it upon himself to “update” the Coyotes’ account using what may have been Microsoft Paint.
Bronin crossed out “Arizona” on the Twitter bio and replaced it with “Connecticut,” and replaced the line “Just a hockey team in the desert” with “Just a hockey team in New England.” He also changed the account’s location to Hartford.
“Updated below,” Bronin tweeted with a screenshot of his changes. He Cc’d Gov. Ned Lamont’s account.
It’s not clear yet whether or not the Coyotes franchise will move from Arizona, where it has been since 1996. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said in a statement that the league was “terribly disappointed” in the outcome of the arena vote, and that it will “review with the Coyotes what the options may be going forward.”
Even if the Coyotes were to move, Hartford would likely not be high on the NHL’s list of potential new destinations for the franchise. Houston, Salt Lake City, Kansas City, Quebec City and Milwaukee have all been rumored as potential landing spots. Those cities have more firm arena plans and larger markets.
“We’d love to see an NHL team return to Hartford, and I think a team would do really well here,” Mayor Bronin said in a statement to The Courant on Friday. “We’ve got a ton of hockey fans in Connecticut, a significant media market, and a city and a region that rallies around its teams. It makes a whole lot more sense to me than having a hockey team in the middle of the desert.”
