Las Vegas Is Thrilled About Its New Identity as Home to NHL Franchise

LAS VEGAS — Blown-up pictures of Chicago Blackhawks players skating with the Stanley Cup populate the walls inside Brando's Sportsbar, just off the Las Vegas Strip.

While stars of Chicago's other sports have a spot or two, the clincher that this is first and foremost a hockey bar is best exemplified by a life-size statue of a Native American at the entrance with a Blackhawks logo on the chest.

Brando's manager Sean Donovan is like a lot of people who live in Las Vegas. He comes from someplace else, in his case the Windy City. But Donovan considers himself a local now, and he can hardly believe that, finally, after many flirtations with other pro sports that left fans here at the altar, he has a team to call his own.

"It's unbelievable. It hardly seems real," Donovan said. "I bought season tickets on day one. I think people are going to be shocked at how well this works. The people who actually live here are very loyal, and they are going to take to this team like it's their own kids."

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Las Vegas—Las Vegas—became a real hockey town on Wednesday. From a ballroom in the Encore at Wynn hotel and casino, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman christened Las Vegas as the 31st city to the league, starting in the 2017-18 season.

In exchange for a cool $500 million expansion fee, principal owner Bill Foley was formally welcomed to the club by Boston Bruins owner and chairman of the NHL's board of governors Jeremy Jacobs.

"Well, Las Vegas, we did it," said Foley, a banking, insurance and winery magnate with an uncanny resemblance to New York Rangers president Glen Sather.

For decades, there have been "What if a major pro team could actually make it in Vegas?" curiosities, but nobody ever had the gumption to actually give it a try.

The players would all be too hung over from all-nighters at the gambling tables, the critics said. They'd be too full from all-you-can-eat buffets to skate. Wise guys from the strip would infiltrate the game and create a major gambling scandal. And it's...in...the...desert. It was 113 degrees here on Tuesday, breaking a 62-year record for that date.

But, when you think about it in 2016, what better place for the coolest sport on earth than Las Vegas?

Sure, there is still plenty of gambling going on in Sin City, but this isn't the Bugsy Siegel, mob-run place of yesteryear. Pro athletes today don't carouse much on the town anymore anyway. With teams having their own charter planes now, they rarely spend more than 24 hours in a city, and almost never overnight after a game.

Plus, nobody wants their picture taken at some bar and posted all over Twitter or TMZ, so they don't get themselves in trouble out in public as much.

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But the biggest reason why the NHL is coming to Las Vegas, Bettman said, is because of "locals" such as Sean Donovan. And, another Illinois transplant, Ken Boehlke.

Boehlke runs hockey blog The Sin Bin, which lovingly refers to Foley as "The Creator." People who doubt the NHL can work in Vegas haven't done enough homework, Boehlke said.

"There are 2.1 million people who live in the Las Vegas area. We have families, we pay taxes, we have homes," Boehlke said. "And this team belongs to Las Vegas. It is something we can call our own, a team we can grow older with. We've never had that before. And people here love sports. We're very loyal to any team from here. We had a Little League team (Mountain Ridge) that played in the U.S. finals of the Little League World Series last year, and it was crazy how much the city got behind a bunch of kids."

Professional hockey has been played in Las Vegas before. The Las Vegas Thunder of the International Hockey League played from 1993-99 at the Thomas & Mack Center, often to weekend crowds in the five figures.

Butch Goring, who won four Stanley Cups with the New York Islanders and is a television analyst for the team today, was the Thunder's first coach. He admits he initially worried about what the city's many off-ice temptations might do to his players, but came away realizing it was all overblown.

"There are more temptations in other cities, in my opinion, like Montreal or New York or Los Angeles," Goring said. "Sure, we had some players who had some fun in Las Vegas, but it was never anything I ever had any problems with as a coach."

What about opposing players? Any team based in Las Vegas, the joke has always gone, will have the best home record in the league because of all the trouble its opponents will find before the puck drops.

Dallas Stars general manager Jim Nill acknowledges it's something he might have worried about 20 or 30 years ago, but not in today's high-surveillance society and with all the money players would stand to lose.

"We worry about everything. But players are professional nowadays. They know they've got a job to do. I don't think it's an issue at all," Nill said. "But I do think it's going to be the destination for every Father's Day trip there is. We better make sure we've got a suite for every player on the trips."

Indeed, Las Vegas probably will become a favored spot for team veterans to hold their rookie-initiation dinners, where they have to pick up the check for everyone. And, sure, some players might lose their per diem money a little quicker in Vegas than other cities, with a slot machine around every corner.

"I think it'll be exciting for teams to come in and play in a different market," said Chicago forward Patrick Kane, who won the Hart Trophy on Wednesday night. "I don't think it's a place where, coming in, you think you're going to be playing hockey. But I think we'll enjoy it. It'll be cool to play in a venue like this. Different fans, different venue and the excitement level will probably be pretty high. I think it'll be exciting for a lot of us."

Bettman said the league conducted an intensive, year-long vetting process and came away convinced the time was right to take the leap of faith on expansion here. The success of hockey in Vegas is a sure bet, he believes.

"We did a tremendous amount of research on this," Bettman said. "And then, the season-ticket drive undertaken here (which was capped at 14,500 and has been sold) demonstrated what the research showed. We didn't think we were in a race, and quite frankly we're unconcerned about what other leagues may or may not do. We just think this is the right time, the right circumstance and we're ready to be here."

The team is expected to be called the Black Knights, which would pay homage to the nickname of the military academy Foley attended as a young man. Foley believes the typical crowd at the 17,500-seat T-Mobile Arena will be composed of 85 to 90 percent local residents.

"There is so much local excitement for this team, and so much support," Foley said. "What this does for Las Vegas is give it an identity, an identity that's unto itself, other than the Strip, and it's going to be fun being a part of that."

Sharks defenseman Brent Burns, in town as a Norris Trophy finalist, believes out-of-town hockey fans will be planning more trips to Vegas now that they can see their favorite team, along with opportunities to see Britney Spears and Wayne Newton.

"This is such a special city I think," Burns said. "People come here to be entertained. They're going to things at night, and so why not (be here)? It's a great city to be in, great food, a lot of Canadians come down here in the winter, too, so if they can't get tickets back in their hometown, they can come here and watch some games. It's going to be great I think."

Indeed, it figures to be a "full house" for the foreseeable future for hockey in Vegas.

Adrian Dater covers the NHL for Bleacher Report.