There was a wonderful, quirky television series that ran in the United States from 1990 to 1995 called Northern Exposure that took place in a fictional town called Cicely, Alaska.  To say that the series was great would be an understatement, I absolutely loved it. I highly recommend that you watch it on DVD if you have not seen it;  it is a funny, entertaining series. I had lived in Alaska in my later youth, and it was there that I was introduced to hockey.  Up to then I had resided in Texas, Arkansas, and Arizona most of my life, and hockey was a foreign sport to these regions of the country.  I attended a small college named Alaska Methodist University in Anchorage, and a friend of mine was on its hockey team.  

I moved back to Arizona in 1970 and I figured that I would never be exposed to hockey again; After all it is a cold weather sport.  Yet in 1996 Phoenix got a NHL franchise, hockey had indeed somehow made its way to the Sonoran Desert.  Years of bad management and poor hockey teams led to fan apathy and bankruptcy of the franchise to the point that the team has been owned by the NHL for the last three years.  Yet a funny thing has happened in these three years, the team has finally become competitive and has made the play-offs for the first time in these three years.  This season the Coyotes have won their first round series against the Chicago Blackhawks and are now in the second round of the playoffs for the very first time.

I hated when Northern Exposure was cancelled in 1995, and I certainly would hate it if the Coyotes were to be bought by an owner who will move them to another city.  But part of the problem is that I am in love with our town, a city that was never made for the sport of ice hockey.   However Phoenix is certainly a city large enough for all the major sports.  So I will understand if the team moves, but there are many other NHL cities that also were not made for ice hockey.  Florida, Carolina, Tampa Bay, Dallas, Nashville, San Jose, Los Angeles, and Anaheim all come to mind.  So I am rooting for the Phoenix Coyotes to win it all this season.  What a great way it would be for our town to say goodbye to the NHL.

I would also like to take a moment to say goodbye to a great New York Yankee Moose Skowron, who passed away yesterday at 81 years.  Moose played first base for the Yankees from 1954 to 1962 and was a 6 time All-Star and a 5-time World Series winner.  Moose hit three game 7 home runs and will be greeted in the beyond by his good pals Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris and chorus of boos, make that moos.