Coyotes forcing Glendale to choose from two bad options
Jun 12, 2012, 4:43 PM
Would you rather be shot or stabbed? Run over by a truck
or choke on a breadstick? Drown or be eaten by a
Tyrannasaurus Rex? OK, maybe the last one is pretty
obvious (T-Rex, duh), but the gist is this:
Bad options are bad options, and what the city of Glendale
is facing right now, with regards to the Phoenix Coyotes,
are bad options.
Keep them by spending money they don’t have or let them
leave and forego a chance to make money down the road.
Awesome.
Truth is, one of the choices is better than the other, and
it’s the former. Keep the Coyotes in town and hope for the
best down the road.
The damage from the team leaving would be significant.
Westgate, for all intents and purposes, could shut down.
Civic pride would undoubtedly take a hit, as no one should
feel good about watching a team bolt town. And to top it
all off we’d be losing a hockey team — a very good hockey
team, mind you — right as they’re looking like a
franchise
worth following.
Want to know how painful it is to watch a team turn into
one of the league’s best shortly after leaving town? Just
look at Seattle, who are watching the Thunder head to the NBA
Finals.
In short, it stinks.
Of course, none of this has anything to do with the budget
issues that have befallen Glendale. The city has very
little money to spend, and any reasonable person would say
what is there should be used for first responders, civic
services and the like long before professional sports. But
letting the Coyotes leave will not fix their budget;
they’d have the same problems, just with one fewer hockey
team.
The Goldwater Institute, which is best known for stopping
the NHL’s deal with Matthew Hulsizer last summer, is
threatening to do all it can to stop this sale, too.
Whether it’s a failed attempt to block last Friday’s vote
or the idea that they’ll sue over its result, the
organization who says its mission is to “advance freedom and
protect the Constitution” is really just trying to prove a
point, regardless of whether or not it actually benefits
Glendale’s residents.
Are their motives pure? No. Do they have a point? Yes.
Should we want them to prevail once again? Nope.
Anyone who says the deal the city is trying to make with
Greg Jamison and his group is a good one is lying, and the
fact that the vote was pushed through in a backdoor-deal-
kind-of-way only adds to the perception
that something is amiss here.
There probably is.
But how they get to the right decision does not matter so
much as they do, indeed, get there. While it is difficult
to justify giving money to a rich man so he can, umm, make
more money in these economic times, that’s exactly what
needs to happen here.
Paper or plastic? Crunchy or creamy? With bacon or
without? OK, once again there’s an obvious answer to the
third option (and, in case you were wondering, it’s
with bacon), while none of the six choices would
lead down a disastrous road (except for not choosing
bacon, of course).
The city of Glendale is not so lucky, as they are forced
to decide between bad and awful.
And, as it pertains to the Phoenix Coyotes, the only
option that has a chance of working out for
Glendale is keeping them in town.