Columnist Dean Juipe: NHL meetings may suggest interest here

Dean Juipe

Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2004 | 10:07 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

Without trying to read too much importance into the location of their meetings, maybe there was something symbolic about the general managers of the 30 National Hockey League teams gathering at Lake Las Vegas, as they did last week.

Their three-day powwow came and went with very little local notice or attention, as the GMs focused on the league's pending labor issues and tinkered with rules-related ideas pertaining to improving the game.

But it was curious, if nothing else, that they chose to meet near Las Vegas. Granted, this city attracts conventions and group meetings from all walks of life and is an easily reached destination from anywhere in North America, but wouldn't the NHL representatives have been more likely to converge in one of their league's cities?

Unless, of course, Las Vegas is quietly in the running for an NHL team and the GM meetings gave at least a few of those guys a chance to scout the surroundings and gauge the prospects for themselves.

This much of the equation is a given: Las Vegas could land an NHL franchise within the foreseeable future. The city has a proven interest in professional hockey and it has at least one facility -- the Thomas & Mack Center -- that could house the type of crowds it would take to support a major league team.

I'm inclined to believe the NHL would succeed in Las Vegas and that it will be here sooner or later.

One thing about it, based on the current economic climate in the league, if Las Vegas is in the running for a franchise it will be a matter of relocating an existing team. The NHL -- with three teams at or near bankruptcy within the past year -- has had its fill of expansion.

The league has some other issues that are clogging its itinerary these days, but its general prospectus includes limited growth and reduced liabilities. It has found that 30 teams is more than enough and it would like to get each of those 30 franchises on solid financial ground.

Toward that, some are saying the NHL is on a collision course with the NHL Players Association and that a lockout or strike is on the horizon. Two dates loom: May 18, which is the deadline for the NHL to inform the players association of its intention to terminate the existing collective bargaining agreement between the parties; and Sept. 15, which is the deadline for enacting a new CBA without it interfering with or delaying the start of the 2004-05 season.

Hockey fans are hoping the NHL and its players can settle their dispute, which can be reduced to this basic claim: The league wants to institute a salary cap and the players, thus far, do not.

A cap seems in order, given its prominence in the other major sports and the fact the NHL has become a gate-driven league that is facing reduced TV exposure. Its affiliation with Fox and ABC not having gone too well, the league is looking at being limited to cable networks only in the United States in the very near future.

Yet even as the NHL grapples with labor, TV, rules and the fact only one man -- Buffalo's Thomas Golisano -- stepped forward last year with an interest and the money to buy a team, hockey remains a great game with an established legacy and fan base.

If the GMs want to do more than just meet in Las Vegas, I think we can probably accommodate them.