The Arizona Coyotes are set for a serious legal battle with the city of Glendale after the Glendale City Council, led by Mayor Jerry Weier and Vice Mayor Ian Hugh voted 5-2 on Tuesday night to terminate the city's 15-year, $225 million lease agreement with the NHL's desert-dwelling franchise.
The council ended the agreement based on Arizona Statute 38-511, which, according to Craig Morgan of FOXSports.com, "allows an agency to cancel a contract if an employee directly involved with the agreement becomes an employee or agent to the other party."
The employee in question is Craig Tindall, who resigned as Glendale City attorney in February 2013 and became general counsel for the Coyotes the following August.
However, according to Morgan, sources indicated that he had little-to-no input in the construction of the lease agreement.
"Two sources familiar with the situation said Tindall had no role in drafting the current agreement, although it is similar to one he helped draft when Greg Jamison attempted to buy the team. One source said Tindall had a limited role as an advisor on the current agreement," Morgan writes.
According to Rodney Smith, the director of sports law and business program at Arizona State University, the city will have to prove that Tindall's input into the agreement was, in fact, "significant."
"One of the words that they will need to focus on in that statute is the word 'significantly,'" said Smith, via Morgan. "They're going to have to prove that he had a significant level of involvement and I think it will be a very uphill battle for the City of Glendale."
Tindall had departed Glendale well before negotiations between the city and Renaissance Sports & Entertainment, now known as IceArizona, had begun. He was however, kept on retainer for six-months and paid his full salary through September of 2013.
While many fans in Glendale appeared at the open forum prior to the city council's vote to express their anger at the potential loss of their team, some have suggested this could be an out for the franchise and the NHL.
"Glendale votes to terminate deal with Coyotes. NHL and team will never, ever have a better out than they have right now," Ken Campbell of The Hockey News tweeted.
The Coyotes franchise has struggled to fill seats and remain a viable business in a climate and market not exactly conducive to hockey fandom. The team has changed hands time and again, as well as swapped base cities. It may never be one of the bigger market teams, but it does seem to have a fairly rabid and committed fanbase. Moving again would likely just undo the painstaking headway the franchise and the league have made in recent years.
If you want to see an example of just what Coyotes hockey means to the people of Glendale, check out this video of Coyotes fan Ronda Pearson laying into Mayor Weier.
