Follow The Yellow Brick Road

I've been leaning towards the goofball side with the blog lately and while that's all well and good (it sates my appetite for the inane), I thought I could use a bit of reality in here to balance things out.

I was at Rookie Camp this morning, ahem... Prospect Development Camp and I mentioned something to a friend of mine that we decided would make an excellent blog topic - our management.

Here's the lowdown: The Coyotes had awful management for years, it was really the only thing we knew. Then, the great and powerful wizard came in (here's to you Don Maloney!), gave the cowardly lion courage, the scarecrow- some brains, the tinman- a heart and sent little Dorothy home on a hot-air balloon (or tried to). Not so many months later I am sitting in the Polar Ice Den watching my babies skate around and around and I am struck, once again, by how quickly we've come up.

Yes, I must admit that a lot of these babies are Barnett's doing and he may have done as good of a job as Maloney (I kind of doubt it) but the fact is that DM is here and we have a plethora of kids to pick from. For once in [I don't know how many] years, we have too many (quality) players and not enough spots. In the grand scheme of things, it's a fantastic problem to have.

Now, back to my main point - Don Maloney (GM) is standing behind me along with Brad Treliving (Assisstant GM) and down the row a bit is Doug Moss (President/COO). It strikes me then, when Monique (fellow hockey blogger) approached Don with 2 pages worth of questions to ask, he doesn't blow her off as most would but stands around talking and answering all her questions. Our boys in management are so available to us. We have all sorts of opportunities to mingle with the big-wigs, so to speak. We can get our questions answered, whether by phone call, email or in person.

Flashback to the draft party for a minute when Jeff Shumway (CEO) was in attendance and stood talking to some fans for awhile. I'm not sure how other teams work but I'm fairly certain that they don't have the same sort of opportunities that we have as far as getting more personal with both players and staff.

I'm sure there's a reason for this - they want to keep us happy. We're not a Canadian team, there's not a waiting list for season tickets, etc. However, those of us who DO care show up to every damn event there is. We do things our own way to get the Coyotes' name into the community and we are damn proud of how well our boys are doing. Far better than any of you expected, I'm sure.

Regardless of whatever else we may or may not have here in Phoenix, we have a management team who cares enough to listen to our likes/dislikes (and actually DO something about them) and a team who shows up every night to make sure we stay entertained.

Stick to the path Dorothy, those flying monkeys don't stand a chance!