Inside Mullett Arena: A uniquely cozy and up-close NHL fan experience

Mike Gould
Mike Gould
Inside Mullett Arena: A uniquely cozy and up-close NHL fan experience
Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

There aren’t many words to sufficiently describe the pandemonium inside Mullett Arena for the Arizona Coyotes’ home opener at Arizona State University on Friday night.

With so much national press in the building, the Coyotes assigned us all counter space at the top of the four corner sections. Like all the fans in attendance, we were right there.

Daily Faceoff took to Mullett Arena on Friday as the Coyotes fell 3–2 in overtime against the Winnipeg Jets. We saw it all. Here are some takeaways from the fan experience at a 5,000-seat temporary NHL rink.

Dressed to impress

Coyotes and Jets supporters alike watched at Mullett Arena on Friday, with the fans clad in blue and white making their presence known with very loud cheers when Cole Perfetti, Mark Scheifele, and especially Blake Wheeler beat ‘Yotes goaltender Karel Vejmelka.

Fans were invited to gather outside the arena earlier in the afternoon for a pre-game party, featuring a red carpet walked by members of the Coyotes (including team president Xavier Gutierrez), a miniature team store, and lots of adult beverages.

Inside the arena, fans had access to multiple food and drink options — including something called “Big Chicken” — and received free mullet wigs and Coyotes T-shirts upon arriving at their seats.

Plenty of fans wore jerseys reading Keller, Doan, or Ekman-Larsson on the back, but others elected to go with something a little more unique.

Pavel Datsyuk was technically under contract with the Coyotes once upon a time …

The student section

Easily the highlight of the night was watching the ASU student section dictate the atmosphere inside the building.

With discounted tickets available for $25 in the south end of the arena bowl, ASU Sun Devils fans-turned-Coyotes supporters arrived in droves. The student section was the first one to fill up and it remained that way all night long.

They brought a veritable library of chants, from the standard (“Let’s go Coyotes”) to the belligerent (“You can’t do that!” for Jets penalties) to the hilarious non-sequiturs (“U-S-A, U-S-A”).

When the Coyotes went to the power play in the same end as the student section, things got very loud very quickly.

There was a fan in the student section wearing a banana costume. Others decided to dress as a pineapple or a penguin. Beyond the Coyotes and Jets, a few other NHL jerseys — including the Edmonton Oilers, Detroit Red Wings, and a Lightning “Kucherov” — were scattered throughout the crowd.

“It looks crazy,” said Carl Pavlock, site manager for Coyotes blog Five For Howling, who sat in section 107 on Friday. “The lights in the beginning were just insane. We’re directly across [from the student section], I just wanted to match that energy.”

Almost everyone wore their mullet wigs, and a lucky few managed to catch T-shirts tossed by the delightfully strange Cameron “Cheers” Hughes, who probably took off 100 tees over the course of the evening.

In the end, this was just part of the damage in the student section:

The fans chime in

Daily Faceoff had the opportunity to speak with some of the fans who attended Friday’s game at Mullett Arena to hear their takeaways from the experience.

“This is incredible,” said Chris Moore, 39. “We’re fired up. There is an absolute audience for this sport, we love it here. We love what the Coyotes bring to Tempe, bring to Phoenix, bring to Arizona.”

While the Tempe arena isn’t quite as remote as the Coyotes’ previous home in Glendale, a few fans still made a significant trek to take in the first game on the ASU campus.

Dale Monnig, 27, said it took him about an hour to get to the game from Surprise, AZ, located in the far northwest of the Greater Phoenix Area, but added that “all in all, it wasn’t really that bad.”

Others came from outside of Arizona entirely.

“I currently live in St. Louis, Missouri, I traveled all the way out here for the game tonight,” said Gabriel Bartley, 21. “It’s my 22nd birthday on Sunday and I’m also a Blues fan.”

The food and drink choices drew praise, although some of the prices were a concern.

“Beer selection’s good, it’s about what it was at the previous arena,” Pavlock said. “The food is … fine. It is a bunch of restaurants that I am familiar with and they’re expensive. It’s great but could be better.”

Most of all, the fans came away with lots of positives about the close proximity to the action on the ice, with the steepness of the arena bowl undoubtedly feeding into that perception.

“It’s been pretty good so far, it’s been exciting,” said Robyn Leaño, host of the Locked on Coyotes podcast who also sat in section 107. “It’s cool seeing everything up close, too. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a professional hockey game this close.”

Christian Fischer scored twice for the Coyotes on Friday, including the first-ever NHL goal at Mullett Arena, but the home team blew its 2–0 lead to ultimately fall 3–2 early in overtime.

The Coyotes (2–4–1) will return to action at their new Tempe-rary home on Sunday evening when they take on Artemi Panarin and the New York Rangers (3–3–2) at 5:00 p.m. PT.

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