Phoenix

The Coyotes lost their biggest player this off-season, a move that undoubtedly made them a weaker team. By trading Ilya Bryzgalov to the Flyers, the Coyotes have a big hole to fill.

It's that time of year again.

The best and most exciting playoffs begin.Their  Better than the NBA playoffs, because of the potential for three of four OT games in a single series.

After visiting the forums on CoyotesCorner.net, a fan site for the "Desert Dogs" (no, I didn't know such sites existed either), there was a thread about the latest developments in the case that never ends.

One bold Coyotes fan wrote under the thread "Update, ball in GWI's court:" "If GWI was going to do more than issue strongly worded statements, they would have done so way before now."

With the end of the year approaching the St. Louis Blues hope that their winning streak doesn't end when the ball drops at midnight. The Blues are on a four game winning streak and have shot themselves up from last in the division to second, only nine points behind Detroit for first in not only the division but also the conference.

October 11, 2009—that's the day news broke that Quebec City mayor Regis Labeaume and others were interested in possibly reviving the NHL in Quebec, and ever since that day I, along with very few other B/R writers, have followed their attempts to do just that through monthly articles.

Yesterday's news out of Glendale, Ariz., changed most of that when Gary Bettman and his cronies, Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly and Owner Matthew Hulsizer went against the will of the people to keep the NHL franchise in a place it never belonged in the first place—the desert.

The Phoenix Coyotes are currently locked into the tightest playoff race you could imagine—not only in the Western Conference, but in their own division.

December 31st.

We've all heard about the NHL's supposed self-imposed deadline to keep the financially-strapped Phoenix Coyotes in the desert where they don't belong and never did.

The problem is, do you actually believe them?

I don't. I've figured all along this was a hypothetical deadline to scare an owner (Matthew Hulsizer is the latest sucker) into possibly buying the team.

The Chicago Blackhawks hoped to make this weekend a turning point in their season.

Instead, they left the weekend as we entered it. Looking to flip the switch and start playing winning hockey.

14,895.

Attendance at a power-house Division II football game last Saturday?

Perhaps the attendance at a football-crazed Texas High School football game last Friday. You know, under the lights?

No. Wrong.

Try, the combined attendance at TWO National Hockey League regular season games at Jobing.com Arena in downtown Glendale, AZ last week between the beleaguered hometown Phoenix team and two of their opponents.

You might have heard that a little over two weeks ago, the fans of a would-be team in Quebec City, Quebec had a massive rally on the Plains of Abraham that drew anywhere between 50,000-100,000 supporters.

Winnipeg?