When it comes to the Arizona Coyotes this season, it is impossible not to mention the team’s temporary home at Arizona State this year.
Playing in the 5,000-seat Mullett Arena, the Coyotes will draw eyes as the team becomes the first NHL team to share an arena with an NCAA team since 1928. The Boston Bruins and Boston University shared an arena from 1924-28 in what is now known as Matthews Arena.
“Although not a long-term solution, it’ll be fun in the short-term,” said Peter Luukko, executive chairman of Oak View Group, the facility’s operator.
Converting the building from NCAA to NHL games has more moving parts now, and when the partnership was announced in February, OVG had to fit NHL updates into the plans.
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Since the Coyotes came on board, Mullett Arena was gifted with technology for replays, real-time stats and video on the benches. The ice floor implant was updated to suit the NHL regulations of pipes spaced three inches between each other.
“A lot of it is the infrastructure to put on a National Hockey League game knowing that your first game is going to be on national TV,” Luukko said. “It’s really just infrastructure because to the university’s credit, they built and designed a first -class facility to begin with.”
Increased media presence required more space made for cameras in the building. With ESPN set to air Friday’s home opener against the Winnipeg Jets, it was especially important to get these upgrades quickly.
The biggest missing piece for the arena lies with the ongoing construction of two new NHL-quality locker rooms at the Annex. The two story, 15,000 square-foot building located adjacent to the arena will be finished in December when the Coyotes return from a 14-game road trip.
For now, the Coyotes will use the arena visitor’s locker room, which contains four adjoining rooms. The locker rooms were all designed by SCI Architects to fit NHL standards and received input from hockey operations, the Coyotes, OVG and the NHL Players’ Association.
When figuring out what to do for the visiting team, it was decided that the best fit would be to put flooring on the ice of the Mountain America Iceplex attached to the arena. The entire sheet of ice and four locker rooms will be available for the visiting team to use.
It will still take time for the NHL experience to fully settle into Mullett Arena, as the full ribbon board displays won’t be installed until January.
There will be seven instances this season where a Coyotes game will be one day within an ASU hockey game. The transition between the two was smoothed out with the center ice logo featuring both the Coyotes and ASU logos.
For the first four games at Mullett Arena, ASU hockey games saw a singular pitchfork logo, before shaving it down and putting on the new logo for the rest of the season.
“It’s a unique situation, but they’re playing in a brand-new facility with all the amenities of an NHL arena, with the exception of capacity,” Luukko said.
Coyotes update
The Coyotes (2-4-0) concluded their season-opening, six-game road trip Tuesday night with a 6-3 win at Columbus. Shayne Gostisbehere scored twice, and goalie Connor Ingram stopped 31 shots in his first win this season.
Gostisbehere’s first goal, which opened the scoring, was his fifth power-play point of the season, tying him for the league lead among defensemen. Arizona had eight power-play goals on the road trip.
The Coyotes will only be home for four games before embarking on their 14-game trip from Nov. 5 to Dec. 7 that will send them back east again, through the midwest and then their first swing through western Canada.
However, persevering through all that travel has a bright upside: The Coyotes will then have 37 home games against just 21 remaining road games the rest of the season.
Reach the reporter at [email protected] or 602-647-4122. Follow her on Twitter @jennaortiz.
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