PHOENIX — Nine months after the Arizona Coyotes were sold to a Utah billionaire, an unexpected player wants to bring NHL hockey back – and he went straight to the source.
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“I have had several meetings with NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and he looks forward to working with us to identify an owner and the best location for a world-class building,” Thomas Galvin, the incoming chairman of the Maricopa County Board, said Monday after the five-member board’s swearing-in ceremony.
Bettman confirmed a Zoom meeting with Galvin to longtime Coyotes’ reporter Craig Morgan.
BREAKING: Newly elected Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chair Tom Galvin announces the formation of a committee of political & business leaders to bring the NHL back to Arizona.
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman confirmed that he met with Galvin before Christmas via Zoom.
Galvin announced he was forming an “advisory committee of visionary leaders” – their names to be disclosed “soon.”
“These are all smart, credible people who know how to do things the right way,” he told reporters after the board meeting.
“The two big questions here are, who would be the owner and where would this building be?”
The right answers have eluded Bettman and a succession of Coyotes owners.
'I've been talking to Bettman': With those words, new Maricopa County Board Chair Thomas Galvin rekindled hope that NHL hockey will return to Arizona someday. Galvin confirms Bettman statement to @CraigSMorgan that convo occurred before Xmas. pic.twitter.com/33jKb8SqGL
Galvin’s very public recruitment of a pro team breaks with the board’s recent history.
The County Board has experience dealing with pro sports teams – it owns Chase Field, the Arizona Diamondbacks’ home.
But county supervisors have largely shied away from public statements involving the pro sports teams that call Maricopa County home, all of which have sought some form of public subsidy over the last 25 years. The board steered clear of the Coyotes’ ultimately fruitless search for a new arena site.
In 1997, a county supervisor was shot inside the board chambers after approving a tax for the Diamondbacks’ stadium.
Galvin is a traditional pro-business Republican who was appointed to the County Board in 2021 after his predecessor was forced to resign.
He won the East Valley District 2 seat in a special election in 2022 and was re-elected in 2024. Both times Galvin won primaries against Trump-aligned Republicans.
He is a partner at the Scottsdale-based Rose Law Group. Galvin’s practice areas would help him understand the myriad needs of a major development.
Galvin has expressed his support for the Coyotes in the past.
Back in 2023, after Tempe voters overwhelmingly rejected the teams proposed arena development, Galvin said: “I have a lot of respect for hockey fans and I think hockey is great for the Valley. I want to see it stay here for decades to come.”
He offered to help with any future site that might be located on county land: “I’m a deal maker. I love to see win-wins.”
The Coyotes ownership’s final chosen site, in far north Phoenix, was just west of Galvin’s supervisory district.
The Maricopa County Board represents 4.5 million people in one of the country’s largest counties. All of Arizona’s major cities, other than Tucson, are situated within the county.
The five-member board is made up for four Republicans and one Democrat.
For 15 years, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman refused to give up on Arizona as a hockey market, despite feckless owners and financial losses.
Based on Bettman’s recent comments, he still hasn’t given up, even after shipping the Arizona Coyotes franchise to Utah.
Here’s what he told the Sports Business Journal in October:
“We’re not focused in the short-term on going back there, but I believe that Arizona was, and could be again, a really good hockey market and a really good market for the NHL, but we’re not actively pursuing anything right now. And, quite frankly, the arena situation would have to be solved before we have any interest in looking at possibilities. We’ve heard from people, but we’re not actively pursuing anything.”
Does Bettman have a timeline for expansion?
“No.
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