Jeff Marek dropped a loaded take on Gary Bettman and Arizona this week, and it's got hockey fans fired up all over again.
Marek said flatly the NHL is "gonna go back" to Arizona. He said it on the Off The Post podcast back on August 5, and the clip resurfaced Friday night through NHL Rumour Report.
His reasoning cuts right at Bettman's track record. Marek said the league has "always been very sensitive about bailing on markets where they build rinks."
That's not a small comment. That's Marek pointing straight at the commissioner's history of holding onto struggling markets long after common sense says otherwise.
And here's the thing. The Arizona Coyotes already left. The franchise relocated and now plays as the Utah Mammoth, sitting at 43-33-6 with 92 points last year under head coach Andre Tourigny.
So what exactly would "going back" even look like? A second Arizona franchise? An expansion bid? Marek didn't spell it out, and that's where the controversy lives.
Bettman has never hidden his affection for Sun Belt markets. Phoenix, Atlanta, Arizona, he's fought to keep hockey alive in all of them, sometimes against the tide of arena problems and ownership chaos.
Why Bettman's Arizona obsession still divides the league
Fans in traditional hockey markets have watched this play out before. Every time a struggling non-traditional market gets a lifeline, there's a Canadian city or a proven US market that feels passed over.
Utah Mammoth GM Bill Armstrong built a competitive roster out of the wreckage in Salt Lake City. The team made the playoff push with a legitimate 92-point season, proof the relocation worked on paper.
That success actually complicates Marek's theory. If Utah is drawing well and winning games, why would the league split the market or chase a second Arizona chapter?
Bettman doesn't operate on nostalgia, at least not publicly. He operates on arenas, ownership groups, and media deals. But Marek's comment suggests the commissioner never fully let Arizona go, even after the franchise packed up.
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None of this gets resolved by one podcast clip. But if Bettman really is circling back to Arizona, the timeline, the arena situation, and the impact on Utah's fanbase are all questions nobody in the league office has answered yet.
Should the NHL ever go back to Arizona after already relocating the franchise?
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