New Phoenix Coyotes owners want to bring NHL All-Star Game to Arizona
Aug 6, 2013, 7:09 PM | Updated: 7:10 pm
The Phoenix Coyotes are here to stay.
The franchise’s new marketing slogan is directly tied to the fact that, for the first time in four years, they have stable ownership.
IceArizona Co., led by investors Anthony LeBlanc and George Gosbee, was approved by the NHL Board of Governors Monday to take over the organization, and from here on out they will be running the show in Glendale.
A guest of Arizona Sports 620’s Doug and Wolf Tuesday morning, LeBlanc said that his group is committed to more than just putting a quality hockey team on the ice.
They want an All-Star Game to finally be played at Jobing.com Arena.
“We have had the discussions with the league; that is part of our agreement,” he said. “The time-frame is what’s in question because there’s a fair amount of work that has to go into it to ensure that the proper accommodations and (that) it’s not a conflict with another major event.”
LeBlanc said, naturally, they wouldn’t want to have the All-Star Game on the same weekend something like the Super Bowl is in town, which will be the case in 2015.
Whenever the game finally gets to the Valley, it will have been a long time coming. The 2006 All-Star Game was supposed to be held in Arizona, but was canceled due to a lockout. The 2011 matchup was supposed to be in Arizona as sort of a ‘makeup game’ for 2006, but was instead played in Raleigh, N.C., over concerns about the Coyotes’ ownership situation.
