When I say “Arizona,” what springs to mind? Cactus. Rattlesnakes. Dry heat. However, politicians in one Grand Canyon State suburb decided that hockey was the perfect fit for their desert bedroom community.The Phoenix Coyotes weren’t happy sharing a new downtown arena with the Suns. So the city of Glendale, Ariz., flush with tax revenue from the Sun Belt real estate bubble, built a hockey-only facility surrounded by miles of cotton fields.

Sacramento mayor and former NBA star Kevin Johnson is desperate to keep the city’s struggling NBA franchise. So much so that he pledged $258 million of public money to build a sparkling new arena.