The Coyotes’ name is as old as its history in the Valley. When it made the move from Winnipeg in 1996, the team was called the Phoenix Coyotes. It made sense at the time, as the Coyotes played downtown at US Airways Center for its first seven years in Arizona, but in 2003, the team moved to Jobing.com Arena in Glendale.
Eleven years later, the Coyotes announced Wednesday the will swap the Phoenix designator for a state-encompassing name, the Arizona Coyotes. It is not the first local team to change its name. When the Cardinals football team moved to Arizona, they called themselves the Phoenix Cardinals, despite playing at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe. They switched to the Arizona Cardinals just five years after that.
With the Coyotes announcement, the Suns and Mercury are the only major sports teams to still bear the Phoenix name.