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If the choosing a nickname crap drags on much longer, and it's a mediocre name especially, some of the anticipation and goodwill of the new team may quickly get tarnished locally?
If the choosing a nickname crap drags on much longer, and it's a mediocre name especially, some of the anticipation and goodwill of the new team may quickly get tarnished locally?
I think quite a few of the ''Newer'' teams have some lame names, so I hope it's not too lame.
I'm not into the Wild or Blue Jackets as team names. The Thrashers were an okay name, but only because it made me think of thrash music. Sounds more suited for a football team. Blue Jackets sounds more like a name for a college team.
Predators is a cool name, as far as the most recent wave of expansion teams go.
I remember thinking the Lightning was kind of a lame name back when the Lightning became a team in the early 90's. It doesn't sound too bad to me now though.
And I also hate the Wild name. I know, I know, it refers to the wild or wilderness of upstate Minnesota, I guess (?), but most Americans know nothing about Minnesota, don't care, and just love making fun of the accents. Wild sounds amateur and minor league.
For what it's worth: I was born in St. Paul, but moved after kindergarten, and my parents are Canadian.
Thought I would update this since it's been a couple months and I live in Vegas...
The team name will be formally announced on November 18th - many locals feeling it is a toss up between the Desert Knights or the Silver Knights... (Nevada is The Silver State and full of old silver mines). IMO, I'd take Silver Knights.
The T-Mobile Arena is beautiful... it opened in April and has mostly held music concerts so far but this weekend it is hosting Frozen Fury XVIII. The Dallas Stars beat the LA Kings 6-3 last night. Early reports from players is that they were very impressed with the facility as well as the way they felt on the ice here in Vegas https://www.vegasishockey.com/news-detail?recordNum=210 https://www.vegasishockey.com/news-detail?recordNum=211
For 18 years, the LA Kings have played at least one preseason game in Las Vegas (usually against the Colorado Avalanche... they play two this year Stars/Avalanche). Set up for hockey, the arena seats 17,500... a while back, they announced that 16,000 season tickets have been sold and the ownership group has decided to cap it there to leave 1,500 single game tickets available each night.
On October 5th, the team broke ground on a new practice facility in Summerlin (a suburb of Vegas about 15 miles/minutes West of the Strip). While being a hub for team operations as well as training activities, it will also be open for use by youth teams in Southern Nevada. https://www.vegasishockey.com/news-detail?recordNum=208
The T-Mobile arena is located directly behind the New York New York property on the Strip. Next to the NYNY is Excalibur... an older, but very affordable property to stay at. They are currently building a massive parking structure to help accommodate additional vehicles being in the area since T-Mobile's opening. Between NYNY, MGM and Monte Carlo (the three closest properties to the arena), there are just over 10,000 hotel rooms.
MGM - 5,000+
NYNY - 2,000 +
Monte Carlo - 3,000 +
The city itself is VERY much excited about our team. Las Vegas is changing... there is less focus on gambling these days. In addition to the T-Mobile opening, MGM built a Top Golf facility that has over 100 hitting bays on four levels. It has been a massive success. Then NHL has finally happened after many years of wonder and exploration into the idea. Now, the LV city council has approved preliminary funding for an NFL stadium in order to bring the Raiders NFL franchise here. All signs point to that happening now as well.
We are a no-income tax state with cheap housing that would obviously be very player-friendly. There are over 2.1 million people here who want to do all the "normal" things that people in other cities want to do as well. We have one of the strongest population growths in the United States... which bodes well for long term success as far as NHL support goes.
Living here is a bit strange sometimes because although it's VERY easy to meet people in a similar situation (most people have moved here relatively recently from somewhere else), we don't have very much that truly unites us. We are a giant melting pot... we all have different backgrounds and I feel like a lot of people here lay so low (we don't gamble or have much reason to go to the Strip now... so that leaves us with suburbia)... bringing pro sports here gives us all a reason to finally bringing the people in this city together.
We are ready... trust me... I see it every day -- and the amount of people I meet who are excited about the thought of visiting Vegas and being able to see their team play against us is also to be taken seriously. The only way to prove this is to see it for yourselves... and you will very soon.
So don't knock us... other cities didn't get a team because they didn't want it enough and we did. It's as simple as that. Vegas built the world-class arena, we got the owner to pay an expansion fee, we got the fans to sell the arena's season tickets out...
Thought I would update this since it's been a couple months and I live in Vegas...
The team name will be formally announced on November 18th - many locals feeling it is a toss up between the Desert Knights or the Silver Knights... (Nevada is The Silver State and full of old silver mines). IMO, I'd take Silver Knights.
The T-Mobile Arena is beautiful... it opened in April and has mostly held music concerts so far but this weekend it is hosting Frozen Fury XVIII. The Dallas Stars beat the LA Kings 6-3 last night. Early reports from players is that they were very impressed with the facility as well as the way they felt on the ice here in Vegas https://www.vegasishockey.com/news-detail?recordNum=210 https://www.vegasishockey.com/news-detail?recordNum=211
For 18 years, the LA Kings have played at least one preseason game in Las Vegas (usually against the Colorado Avalanche... they play two this year Stars/Avalanche). Set up for hockey, the arena seats 17,500... a while back, they announced that 16,000 season tickets have been sold and the ownership group has decided to cap it there to leave 1,500 single game tickets available each night.
On October 5th, the team broke ground on a new practice facility in Summerlin (a suburb of Vegas about 15 miles/minutes West of the Strip). While being a hub for team operations as well as training activities, it will also be open for use by youth teams in Southern Nevada. https://www.vegasishockey.com/news-detail?recordNum=208
The T-Mobile arena is located directly behind the New York New York property on the Strip. Next to the NYNY is Excalibur... an older, but very affordable property to stay at. They are currently building a massive parking structure to help accommodate additional vehicles being in the area since T-Mobile's opening. Between NYNY, MGM and Monte Carlo (the three closest properties to the arena), there are just over 10,000 hotel rooms.
MGM - 5,000+
NYNY - 2,000 +
Monte Carlo - 3,000 +
The city itself is VERY much excited about our team. Las Vegas is changing... there is less focus on gambling these days. In addition to the T-Mobile opening, MGM built a Top Golf facility that has over 100 hitting bays on four levels. It has been a massive success. Then NHL has finally happened after many years of wonder and exploration into the idea. Now, the LV city council has approved preliminary funding for an NFL stadium in order to bring the Raiders NFL franchise here. All signs point to that happening now as well.
We are a no-income tax state with cheap housing that would obviously be very player-friendly. There are over 2.1 million people here who want to do all the "normal" things that people in other cities want to do as well. We have one of the strongest population growths in the United States... which bodes well for long term success as far as NHL support goes.
Living here is a bit strange sometimes because although it's VERY easy to meet people in a similar situation (most people have moved here relatively recently from somewhere else), we don't have very much that truly unites us. We are a giant melting pot... we all have different backgrounds and I feel like a lot of people here lay so low (we don't gamble or have much reason to go to the Strip now... so that leaves us with suburbia)... bringing pro sports here gives us all a reason to finally bringing the people in this city together.
We are ready... trust me... I see it every day -- and the amount of people I meet who are excited about the thought of visiting Vegas and being able to see their team play against us is also to be taken seriously. The only way to prove this is to see it for yourselves... and you will very soon.
So don't knock us... other cities didn't get a team because they didn't want it enough and we did. It's as simple as that. Vegas built the world-class arena, we got the owner to pay an expansion fee, we got the fans to sell the arena's season tickets out...
Looking forward to this!! Cheers!!
Excellent writeup. I'm a Kings fan and enjoyed watching the game last night (on TV)...it looks like a very nice arena. Question (you didn't say if you were at the game)...was the Shake Shack there up and running? Was wondering if they got it open in time for Frozen Fury.
Seems like the NHL will do nicely in Vegas. Looking forward to it.
Desert Knights and Silver Knights are terrible names. This has been a trend as of late with NHL expansion teams. Hopefully they will at least come up with a good logo unlike Nashville. It must be a hard task to come up with a nickname that will please everyone but it sounds like Vegas is obsessed with a knight theme for reasons unknown. It's like they're not even trying very hard. Maybe they'll drop a bombshell in November and have an awesome name and logo.
At the end of the day, though, as long as the fan base is happy that's what matters.
Excellent writeup. I'm a Kings fan and enjoyed watching the game last night (on TV)...it looks like a very nice arena. Question (you didn't say if you were at the game)...was the Shake Shack there up and running? Was wondering if they got it open in time for Frozen Fury.
Seems like the NHL will do nicely in Vegas. Looking forward to it.
Shake Shack opened in addition to four all-new restaurants alongside NY NY leading pedestrians back to the T-Mobile Arena. The most popular of the four has been BeerHaus. That whole area is now known as "The Park"
As an added bonus, The Arena is the closest major object to the In-n-Out burger on Tropicana and Dean Martin Drive. People love it.
This past weekend's events were a big success. The hockey fan fest definitely felt alive with all the buzz surrounding the new team. Our owner (Bill Foley) was there answering questions from the crowd and media.
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