The Phoenix Coyotes announced recently that as of the upcoming off-season they would be re-branded as the Arizona Coyotes… this part of their plan to be more representative of the entire state/the city of Glendale told them to cut it out with this Phoenix nonsense or they’ll stop paying to keep them alive.

Recently launched was a website allowing Coyotes fans to purchase season tickets for the 2014-15, their first as Arizona, and included on that site were a couple of graphics showing updated marks featuring the new name.

Nothing revolutionary, it was a matter of taking their existing “Phoenix” logos and substituting “Arizona” in its place…

We got the new shoulder patch, which the club announced wouldn’t be seen until the 2014-15 pre-season. What was once a “PHX” is now an “AZ”:

Also seen was a new club wordmark, the one displayed on the site featured “ARIZONA” written in beige/sand, typically used exclusively for dark backgrounds. We’ve updated it to be shown in brick, which is the preferred club method for application on light or white backgrounds:

At this point we’re assuming these are official new marks for the Coyotes next season… like, they probably are the new logos… but writing as someone who has actually worked for an official NHL team website in the past, it’s also plausible that these were just quick Photoshop jobs down by the Coyotes’ graphic designer for use on this website.

The primary mark will remain the same as this current season, the uniforms will also reportedly be exactly the same with the exception of the shoulder patch switching from “PHX” to “AZ” as seen earlier in this post.