• Slug: Sports-Tucson Roadrunners , 1,545 words.
• Photo available.

By Chase Beardsley
Cronkite News

TUCSON – The smell of doughnuts, the “meep meep” sound effect from the Looney Tunes’ Road Runner and mascot Dusty the Roadrunner hyping up fans – all are staples of the American Hockey League’s Tucson Roadrunners game day experience.

However, while this season’s home opener brought all of the hoopla, it still felt different. Last season ended in heartbreak as the Calgary Wranglers swept the Roadrunners in the opening round of the AHL playoffs. The Roadrunners were on the path to success though, as their regular season record was getting better season after season.

However, the future of the team in Tucson is uncertain and the reminders of its perilous status rang throughout the arena with a faint “let’s go Utah” chant.

During the offseason, the Roadrunners’ future in Tucson was put into sudden jeopardy. The Arizona Coyotes, the Roadrunners’ former NHL affiliate, were sold to Qualtratics co-founder Ryan Smith, who moved the club from the Valley to Salt Lake City.

That left the Roadrunners in the hands of former Coyotes’ owner Alex Meruelo. The billionaire received the AHL team in a package with the Coyotes when he purchased the NHL team from Andrew Barroway in 2019.

Questions surrounding the Roadrunners’ future in Arizona exploded after the relocation of the Coyotes’ hockey operations. Fuel was added to the fire when Meruelo told 98.7 Arizona Sports that he would attempt to move the Roadrunners north to Tempe to play in Mullett Arena following an agreement with ASU. That plan changed quickly as Meruelo claimed that there was no agreement with the university yet, but still acknowledged the plan was to fill the void in Tempe left by the Coyotes.

“This is very early in the process so I’m not sure what we’re going to do,” Meruelo said. “We’ve talked about playing half a season in Tucson and half a season in Mullett. There’s a lot of discussion going on.

“There’s no commitment from anybody right now so I want to make sure my words aren’t being taken out of context. We don’t have any agreements with ASU and we haven’t even spoken to the people in Tucson. We have different ideas. We just want to make sure hockey is thriving in the desert.”

Eventually, an agreement between the AHL and Meruelo set the number of games the Roadrunners would play in Mullett Arena to six. However, after the cancellation of a land auction for a parcel in north Phoenix on which Meruelo planned to build an arena and lure the NHL back to Arizona, he decided to keep the AHL team in Tucson for the entire 2024-25 season.

The Roadrunners also rekindled their relationship with the City of Tucson and the Tucson Convention Center (where the team plays) by signing a three-year lease extension with the Rio Nuevo group, the venue’s owners.

“We made it clear from the beginning that we wanted the Roadrunners here,” Fletcher McCusker, chairman of Rio Nuevo, told ABC KGUN Tucson.

While it seemed like the Roadrunners’ future was in Tucson, reports over the summer said differently. Sportico’s Barry Bloom reported that Meruelo will move the Roadrunners to Reno, Nevada, where the billionaire is building a 10,000-seat arena to house the University of Nevada basketball team along with being a part of a new downtown entertainment complex. Meruelo owns casinos in Reno, so it makes sense that he’s also investing in building an arena there.

The lease extension the Roadrunners signed over the summer is three years, roughly the time Meruelo’s arena in Reno is expected to be completed. Even if the Roadrunners are still in Tucson by the time the Nevada arena is finished in the fall of 2027, they could escape by breaking the lease. That could cost Meruelo millions, but it could be a possibility if he’s desperate enough to put the team in his brand-new building.

While nothing has been officially decided, a huge shadow looms over the team. In the stands, fans have started a movement to try to keep the Roadrunners in Tucson. Pamphlets urging fans to help keep their team were scattered all over the arena during Tucson’s playoff games against the Calgary Wranglers last season, complete with QR codes directing fans to a petition that was sent to the AHL board of governors over the summer with 3,500 signatures.

It’s not a topic that has eluded players and staff either.

Coach Steve Potvin’s hockey journey has taken him all around Arizona. He ended his pro hockey playing career in Prescott with the Arizona Sundogs of the Central Hockey League. He started his hockey coaching career in the Valley with the Arizona Jr Coyotes. For the past eight seasons, he’s been a part of hockey in Tucson, moving from assistant coach to his current position as the Roadrunners’ head coach.

Potvin has watched players like Josh Doan, Matias Maccelli, Dylan Guenther and Barrett Hayton grow in the organization and eventually play with the Coyotes. This summer has left Potvin in the dark at various points but in the end, he’s still coaching in Tucson and he couldn’t be happier.

“It’s been a long summer waiting to get back here, and there were so many unanswered questions for a long time, and we are so happy to be able to be here tonight,” Potvin said after the Roadrunners’ first home game this season, a 6-4 loss to the Texas Stars. “It was a really good turnout. The fans really supported us, and we hope that we can entertain them, have them come back again, and get some victories up on the board for them.”

Potvin will still be able to help get prospects to the NHL after Meruelo and the Roadrunners agreed to an affiliation agreement with the Utah Hockey Club. While it will involve longer travel between the NHL and AHL teams, the staff and players he worked with in Arizona remain the same.

Without an NHL team in Arizona, the state of hockey in the desert is in flux. The Roadrunners are the highest level of hockey followed by Arizona State’s NCAA Division I team. However, fans are still fighting to prove that hockey does belong in Arizona. The loud crowd at the Roadrunners’ home opener proved the fans are making players believe that hockey belongs in the desert.

“The fans here are showing that hockey is not dead in Arizona,” Roadrunners forward Hunter Drew said. “I think that’s a great feeling for us and them. We feed off them, so it’s a good feeling when they’re coming out and supporting us. We’ll take them in bunches.”

For Arizona hockey fans, not only are the Roadrunners the highest level of hockey in Arizona, it’s also a way to watch some of the best prospects who will one day make it to the NHL. Maveric Lamoureux was drafted by the Coyotes 29th overall in 2022. After spending a couple of seasons in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, the defenseman is seeking to follow the same path players like Guenther and Maccelli once traveled as they bettered their skills in the AHL to reach the NHL.

After receiving one of the loudest receptions by Roadrunner fans on opening night when his name was announced, Lamoureux turned the crowd into a frenzy when he scored his first pro hockey goal off a shot from the blueline. It’s a moment he’ll never forget and it’s one that fans in Tucson will enjoy forever.

“That was nice,” Lamoureux said with a big smile on his face. “Scoring at home with all the fans is always better. It wasn’t like a little tip shot or something. Scoring a nice goal like that felt good.”

Days later, Lamoureux was called up to the NHL. Except for one of the first times, a prospect playing on the Roadrunners wasn’t making the short drive to the Valley. Instead, Lamoureux boarded an early morning flight to Salt Lake City to make his NHL debut for Utah. He played later that day against the Colorado Avalanche and, a couple of games later against the Calgary Flames, Lamoureux scored his first NHL goal.

It’s a lot of changes in a short amount of time, and a lot of uncertainty surrounding the future of pro hockey in Tucson. However, for the foreseeable future, pro hockey abides in the desert. Fans can still get the iconic gameday experience of smelling donuts and hearing the “meep meep” sound effect. It’s different with the Roadrunners’ maroon jerseys now donning the Mountain Blue Utah logo where the Coyotes’ Kachina logo used to be, while faint “let’s go Utah” chants echo around the arena.

But pro hockey is trying to thrive in the desert. It’s here to stay for the next couple of seasons, though the City of Tucson plans to fight to make sure it stays forever.

“We (Tucson) want to have an AHL franchise forever,” McCusker said.

The story seems to have one crazy turn after another. While fans in Arizona can’t watch the NHL stars of today play each other, they still can watch the future of the NHL come through Tucson as they hope to make it to the next level. There are a lot of changes including a new affiliation, but it’s still Tucson Roadrunners hockey.

For more stories from Cronkite News, visit cronkitenews.azpbs.org.