PHOENIX, AZ – After numerous cities have voted against supporting the construction of a new arena for the Arizona Coyotes, a defiant Gary Bettman stated his intention to found an entirely new metropolis in The Grand Canyon State.
“I’m not going to lie, the Tempe vote was disheartening,” the commissioner explained to reporters, “But after handing the Stanley Cup to the Vegas Golden Knights, I went for a stroll down The Strip, when it hit me: I was in Paradise, Nevada, a community essentially founded by visionaries in defiance of logic and reason, visionaries that included my personal hero, Bugsy Siegel”.
“With that in mind, I decided if Arizonans don’t want a hockey team in their community, then I’ll just bring a community to the hockey team!”
Dubbing the team’s prospective new home “Garyville”. The commissioner promised a town “for hockey, by hockey”.
He explained “Garyville will be the city the NHL always dreamed of! Our laws will be written by the competition committee! We’ll have casinos funded by DraftKings and managed by Rick Tocchet and Janet Gretzky! And do you think anyone will have the guts to cause problems when our commissioner is Tie Domi?! We’ve even found the perfect spot for a town square, it’s a tract of desert currently inhabited by a pack of rabid coyotes! I’m telling you, it’s fate!”.
Pausing for a moment to wipe sweat from his brow, Bettman shouted to no one in particular “We’re gonna freeze the Colorado River!”
Frothing at the mouth, the Hockey Hall of Famer surged on. “I refuse to deny the people of this state the sport that is such a critical part of its identity. Kids skating in the sand, passing the old tumbleweed back and forth. One child shared with me a short story he wrote about the time JC Penny accidentally sent him a San Jose Sharks sweater! No one actually noticed the difference, but it felt pretty weird nonetheless!”
Bettman also waved away any suggestion that it might be time to accept that a team in the state was simply not a viable choice, and disrespectful to Canadian fans who are eager for more franchises in the sport’s home. “Throughout my tenure, I have always made Canada a priority. I ask you, when has it ever been good for the country to give Quebec what it wants?”.
The commissioner concluded his address by adding that the upcoming release of NHL 24 will include a SimCity add-on in exchange for a 3-year season ticket commitment, before cajoling the gathered press to sing along to the “completely original” town anthem of “Sweet Home Arizona”.
In a related story, the aforementioned coyote pack voted unanimously against the subsidization of any sports venue in their community.
