Will the Coyotes Be Moved to the Great Northern Beaver Theocracy?

The question, I'm afraid, has to be asked.

James Mirtle, who comes from the western regions of Mooseland but makes his living in the beaver worship mecca of Toronto, points out that the Phoenix Coyotes are the least valuable team in the NHL, from a usurer's perspective, and that they might have to be moved back to Winnipeg or some other outpost in the far and snowy Beaver Theocracy frontier.

Greg Wyshynski frames this debate as a Beaver God True Believers vs. hapless hockey teams in non-traditional markets issue, which it is, seeing as this jumped onto the Toronto media's radar only when the Leafs recently traveled to Phoenix. I find it hard to disagree with his points here:

...why all this special attention on Phoenix?

For one, there's the Gretzky effect, as the coach (and defender of hockey in the desert) is hockey royalty seen wasting away in a market that doesn't appreciate him or his sport. Remember, it wasn't too long ago that Gretz was seen as the Leafs' potential savior. Canada wants its "favourite" son back.

Then there's the fact that the Canadian media generally supports more teams north of the border, and Phoenix appears to be the latest loose apple on the non-traditional market tree -- find the U.S. team struggling the most, and shake until it hopefully falls to the ground.

...

But perhaps deep down, it all comes back to Winnipeg. Perhaps the notion of "stealing one back," or simply proving that the relocation of a Canadian team to the U.S. was a mistake, is a subtle driving force behind the scrutiny, too. Not to say the Coyotes will ever become the Jets again, but there might be a measure of revenge at play in the back of some minds.

This kind of superstition tends to make people resentful; the people at TSN, for instance, actually believe that Wayne Gretzky is going to be poked in the backside by a Senora cactus for eternity, for his transgressions.

All of which brings me to my REAL point: the Coyotes would be fine if John McCain had been elected President-Emperor of America. Thanks a lot, Communists!