The idea of an NHL club playing their home games at a college rink sounds bad enough as is. But now that it is actually coming to fruition and with fans beginning to see what it will be like, the perception is only getting worse.
The Coyotes have their first home game of the 2022-23 season on Friday, as the team hosts the Jets at Arizona State's Mullett Arena. The college rink is the temporary home for the organization, as Arizona will be sharing the rink for three seasons with the Sun Devils' hockey programs.
As the home opener date has slowly approached, fans have begun to see what the set up is like behind the scenes at the facility, and for an NHL team, they are less than stellar. Pictures of the locker rooms have circulated around social media and let's just say we've seen youth hockey arenas with nicer dressing areas than what we are seeing out of Mullett Arena.
This is the Arizona Coyotes locker room. The HOME locker room in their arena.
— Stat Boy Steven 🇳🇱 🇮🇪 (@StatBoy_Steven) October 28, 2022
If I was on that team, I'd request to be sent down to the AHL 😂 pic.twitter.com/EPphNvNvSX
Yupp, that's right. An actual NHL hockey team is going to be using the above as their home locker room for this season. Not some junior B team from Saskatchewan, the Arizona Coyotes.
If you think the home locker room is bad, get ready for the away ones. Or should I say, the open area that is being transformed into a training/locker room area for visiting teams for the first four games of the season.
We got a first look at the temporary visiting team spaces (dressing room, training areas, etc.) for the first 4 NHL games at Mullett Arena!
— PHNX Coyotes (@PHNX_Coyotes) October 26, 2022
The annex is being built and expected to be ready in December.
Full discussion: https://t.co/I8WhRYnAss
Full show: https://t.co/Y2dZMn7BiM pic.twitter.com/24SXok1S3I
The visiting dressing room at the Arizona Coyotes’ Mullet Arena is ready to go: pic.twitter.com/HvSGU4eCHA
— Gino Hard (@GinoHard_) October 27, 2022
While the visitor's dressing room continues to be built for the NHL level, teams will be using a temporary area located in the public community rink. The home dressing room may not have stalls, but at least it has a bench for players to sit on rather than just fold-out seats like the away teams will have.
An actual locker room is expected to be ready by December, but for this first four-game home stand, the opposition will have a throwback feel in their dressing areas.
MORE: Connor Bedard leads latest NHL Central Scouting rankings
Fans were already skeptical when the team announced in February of this year that the Coyotes would be playing on a college campus in an arena that seats about a third of the people an average NHL rink holds. Now that it's becoming a reality and the optics of the operation have been made available, it is an increasingly embarrassing look on the part of the league.
Why are the Coyotes playing at Arizona State's Mullett Arena?
The 2021-22 NHL season was the final one for the Coyotes' lease at Gila River Arena. The city of Glendale elected not to renew the deal and ended its relationship with the organization.
In need of a new arena, the team announced last February that it was entering into a partnership with Arizona State to play games at the university's new multipurpose facility, Mullett Arena.
MORE: How Phil Kessel's NHL ironman streak compares to other all-time leaders
The two sides agreed that the Coyotes would play their home games in Tempe for the 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons. There is a mutual option for 2025-26.
The organization is in the process of finding a new full-time arena for the team.
