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Arizona’s Mullett Arena is a bizarre venue for the NHL but produces a unique atmosphere

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TEMPE, Ariz. – The first thing you notice about Mullett Arena is the noise. It’s everywhere. After a night of heavy-beating music, Coyote group howls, a loud arena announcer, a guy leading chants and tossing shirts in the crowd, and fans banging on the glass, you feel some sensory overload.

The feeling from attending Friday night’s Arizona Coyotes game against the New York Islanders reminded me of how I used to have to decompress after leaving a St. Bonaventure basketball game at the iconic Reilly Center. Down in Olean, the fans and the music go nonstop all night and become a part of the experience, and even have an impact on the game.

The Coyotes are in a tough spot and playing on the campus of Arizona State University is a temporary solution for at least three years while they try to get a new arena built in this Phoenix suburb. Still, getting to play in a new $134 million college facility in front of full houses – even if the place only seats 4,600 – seems to have given the franchise a jolt.

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The Sabers played their first game in Mullett on Saturday night and got their initial look during their morning skate. There were a lot of curious looks.

“It’s a different environment than we’re obviously used to, but the ice was really good, so that’s always the most important thing,” said Buffalo center Tage Thompson, who was born a few miles away in the Coyotes’ former hometown, Glendale. “It will be interesting. Not a lot of seats. So it’s gonna be very tight, right on top of you and probably pretty loud.”

Players across the league have been raving about the quality of ice in the building. New York Islanders star Mathew Barzal told Newsday after practicing here on Thursday that the Mullett ice should show the league it needs to be harder on teams and facilities to produce better ice because of how much it can help offense.

“The ice is fantastic,” acknowledged Sabers captain Kyle Okposo, who famously ripped the ice in Brooklyn’s Barclays Center when he played for the New York Islanders and they first moved there in 2015. “It’s some of the best ice I’ve ever been. on. The puck slides really well, it’s fast. So that aspect of it is great for sure.”

Thompson pointed out the ice was exceptionally hard with no bumps, so the puck moved around the rink in true fashion without unexpected hops.

But the elephant in the room, of course, is the arena’s size. No recent temporary arenas in places like Ottawa, San Jose or Tampa Bay were remotely this small. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has been adamant, however, that the Coyotes will equal or exceed the revenue they would have earned in Glendale. Still, there are plenty of skeptics around the league and you can add Okposo to the list.

“It’s different. It is what it is. They’re making the best out of the situation,” the Sabers’ captain said diplomatically. “The thing that’s tough for me to get past and being in the league for quite some time is that as I look at the other sports, we want to be as competitive. We want to be on par with those other leagues as possible, as close to them as possible. And I just think about LeBron James walking into an arena that has 5,000 seats and what he would say. That’s something that’s tough for me to get past, but they’re making the best out of the situation that they “re in.”

Thompson was similarly diplomatic. He was born in Arizona but never played hockey here as his father, Brent, began to move at the end of his playing career and the beginning of his coaching career. But he spends summers in the state and even works out with Toronto Maple Leafs star and fellow Arizonan Auston Matthews. Thompson said it’s important to keep the Coyotes’ franchise moving.

“It’s great for the state to see hockey growing,” he said. “It’s a good thing to see and you always want the game to grow. And they’ve done a great job with this. Nice to see.”

The Coyotes’ saga has been well-documented over the years. There was nothing wrong with the Gila River Arena in Glendale, other than its location on the west side of Phoenix. The heavy concentration of fans live in the East, in the Tempe-Scottsdale-Mesa area. And traffic here can be terrible. Especially for weekend nights, the location conspired heavily against the Coyotes.

In the end, the Coyotes were kicked out of their own building by the city of Glendale over delinquent tax bills and unpaid arena changes. The team worked out a deal with Arizona State to play in its new building and pumped in an additional $20 million to Mullett Arena to bring it up to NHL standards. Tops on that list was a new dressing room annex to accommodate the teams that was just completed earlier this month. The Coyotes played four home games starting in late October using temporary rooms but agreed to go on a 14-game road trip so the work could be completed. The accommodations in the visiting room are excellent.

“It’s definitely a little bit different but it’s cool. The locker rooms are great. The setup is good,” said Islanders veteran Anthony Beauvilier. “Stepping onto the rink, it’s got kind of a different feel to it. But it’s cool. The facility here is unbelievable.”

The seating bowl features only about 15 rows of seats all around, just a tad bigger than LECOM Harborcenter. But they are all seats except for one end, which has bench seating available to ASU students for $25 per game. There is a club restaurant and several suites. The Arizona State fork logo is prominent on some of the priciest chairs and a giant “Fear the Fork” sign sits at one end. The fork logo and the Coyotes’ Kachina logo share the center ice circles.

There are broadcast booths for television and radio, but the rest of the media sits at tables above the top rows of the stands. Fan who jump out of their seat can block the view unless you’re standing. Reporters long used to being locked away in press boxes high atop NHL arenas have quite the different night here, with running conversations with ushers and nearby fans coming in and out of aisles or waiting in line for restrooms or an adjacent concession stand.

The Coyotes were just 11-27-3 at home last year in their final season in Glendale, where they averaged only 11,601 and played to just 63 percent of capacity. They’re playing to 100 percent now and entered Saturday’s game 4-2-1 at home, highlighted by a last-second win last week over the Boston Bruins. The noise can give visiting teams problems. So can the depth perception of a much smaller building, which has a different look at its two ends because of the student bench section that was designed with Arizona State in mind.

Friday’s game was a good example. The Coyotes fell behind, 2-0, in the first period but eventually took a 3-2 lead on a pair of second-period goals 14 seconds apart. The noise and the “Let’s go Yotes” chants were mainstays all night and the fans roared as the Coyotes held on in the final seconds with Isles goalie Ilya Sorokin on the bench for an extra attacker.

“They liked what they saw,” said Arizona coach Andre Tourigny. “That was a physical game. That was a high paced game with a lot of goals. We like when we have that kind of emotion and intensity in our building. That’s for sure.”

“It’s a fun place to play. I think it’s a good atmosphere,” said Coyotes forward Travis Boyd, who scored the winning goal against the Islanders. “And I think it’s tough for visiting teams to come in and play. Especially when we get the crowd into it, especially when we’re playing the way that we can play. I think we’re building something here. It’s a lot of fun going out there and playing. … We got some good juju going on in this place.”

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