Coyotes fans gets some heartbreaking news ahead of their final game

It's over.

It's finally... mercifully over.

According to a report from Phoenix sports insider John Gambadoro, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and Arizona Coyotes owner Alex Muerelo are expected to confirm relocation of the Coyotes to Salt Lake City, Utah in the next 24 to 48 hours.

This means that the Coyotes will play their last game in franchise history on Wednesday evening.

From Gambadoro:

If this doesn't confirm with 100% certainty that this team is done and cooked, I don't know what will. It certainly appears that Bettman and the NHL have finally given up hope on hockey working in the Arizona desert... for now, at least.

It remains to be seen if Muerelo will be able to build this mythic arena that he's been chasing since 2019, but given the history in Arizona I'm not optimistic. I really feel for the true Coyotes fans in Arizona, but the sad reality is that there's just not enough of them to make this franchise profitable. There's no shame in that, they're just not an NHL market. Look around Canada and you'll find cities like Quebec City, Hamilton, London, Saskatoon and Halifax that have a tremendous hockey culture and a ravenous fanbase... there just simply aren't enough of them. 

I don't profess to be an expert on Salt Lake City, so I don't know if the NHL will fare better there than they did in Arizona but it's clear to me that it's time for a fresh start for this team. It's been nearly 30 years and the Coyotes have been an abject failure for almost their entire existence. Enough is enough.

For all I know Salt Lake might be a terrible landing spot for this team, but it's hard to imagine they'll be worse off than they were in Phoenix. And again, this is no slight to the passionate hockey fans who live and breathe Coyotes hockey. I feel for you, I truly do. I'm a Canadian hockey fan who has lived through losing two franchises that I adored. One has returned and I suspect we're tapped out for NHL teams in the Great White North, so I'm holding on to everything we've got.

So long, Arizona/Phoenix Coyotes. It's been a slice.