Travis Hair writes a blog for SB Nation called Five for Howling.  I asked him for his take on the prospect of losing his home team to Southern Ontario:

I live in the middle of the Desert Southwest, and I've grown up loving hockey.

 

 

I was born in Las Vegas and moved to Phoenix when I was five-years-old. Sure hockey isn't "natural" to this part of the country, but that keeping someone from enjoying hockey all the same doesn't make a whole lot of sense either.

 

In the early days all I had to watch were the IHL Phoenix Roadrunners. For a minor league team, they filled up the 13,730 seat arena pretty nicely. It wasn't always full, but it was far from empty and from what I remember as a child you could get highlights on the news. I couldn't tell you the name of one player on those teams, but I always had fun.

 

At the same time, there were only two sheets of ice in the entire city. Youth hockey was almost nonexistent and you had to pay a small fortune to play since there were zero hockey shops in town to get equipment at. I had always wanted to play, but never really got the chance as a kid. The closest I got was a pair of Bauer "Charger" skates when I was 12.

 

Then in 1996 the NHL announced that the Winnipeg Jets would be moving to the Valley. At the time I was 15 and had no idea where Winnipeg was on a map. I didn't know why they were moving, I just knew that they were and that I'd have NHL hockey in my city. They renamed the Jets the Coyotes and things took off from there.

 

I was at the opening game when the Coyotes moved out to Glendale. Jobing.com is a jewel of an Arena, and anyone who's been there will tell you how great it is. It's about 20 miles from Downtown Phoenix, but for many of the whiners it's 20 miles the wrong way. The fact of the matter is that Phoenix fans only show up when teams do well. If the team isn't a winner then there's a laundry list of reasons not to go. That's true of all sports in the Valley. Even the NFL has a hard time selling out games, and the Cardinals were in the Super Bowl last year. As for myself, I moved to be closer to the Arena. I even painted my office in Coyote colors, decorated it with Coyote schwag and the whole bit. So this whole mess directly affects me.

 

Judge Redfield T. Baum, the judge overseeing the Phoenix Coyotes bankruptcy proceedings, will hopefully rule sometime this week on what will happen with the team. I hope, and I think, that he'll be awarding the team to the NHL. [ed. this could keep the team in Phoenix] I've sat in the courtroom more than a few times to see what's going on and every time he rules he tries to do so in the easiest way where it causes the least damage to the parties. With everyone except for the owner of the Coyotes Jerry Moyes supporting the NHL bid, from the Michael Dell group (Michael Dell, of Dell computers, has an investment fund that is owed $80 million by the Phoenix Coyotes), the City of Glendale and the creditors' committee, I just don't see how the judge could turn around and give the team to Ontarian Jim Balsillie.

 

Fans here have endured months of stories, true or not, about the team moving. Hopefully our on ice product comes out good enough to quiet some of it, because I can't take much more. This whole summer should have been about a young team that's getting even better. Instead it's been all about legal motions, nationalistic posturing, some rich guy that the NHL hates and endless bickering between "fans" about what markets "deserve" hockey and which ones don't.

 

Quite frankly it's made me more than a little angry and frustrated to see the animosity that exists in some corners. Part of the reason I like hockey so much is that there's a "community" feel to the sport on the whole. There's sportsmanship involved. Sure there's actual fighting in the games, but rarely is there real animosity there. It's just heat of the moment stuff. Our players are the best of any sport around in terms of being personable to the fans. It's just a great game and the people involved have always been that way too. But this summer had brought out some of the ugliest parts of the fan base and the media, trashing my team, my fans, my friends, and I've taken it personally.

 

Whatever happens there needs to be some sort of healing. Not only for the fans here, but with ones north of the border as well. The fans here didn't "steal" a team from Winnipeg, the team was moved here. Blame the commissioner of the NHL Gary Bettman, blame economics, but don't blame fans here for either having a team, or not going to support a cruddy team (which was only that way thanks to cruddy management). Just ask Toronto Star reporter Damien Cox: not going to games is how you improve the on ice product, right?

 

Whatever happens, I'll be here supporting MY team and its players. Shane Doan, Peter Mueller, Mikkel Boedker, Martin Hanzal, Ilya Bryzgalov, Scottie Upshall, Zbynek Michalek, Matthew Lombardi and many more. They're my team and my players and I’ll watch them and root for them until the end. Hopefully that tirade made some semblance of sense, if not, I blame Jim Balsillie. Awwwooooo! (That's a Howl, for those unfamiliar.)

Check out the perspective of a Leafs' fan here.