Bern’s-Eye View: Las Vegas’ pro franchise dream now an unofficial reality

By Taylor Bern

Wednesday, June 15, 2016 | 2 a.m.

It’s not quite official, sure, but no one’s going to stop you from celebrating all the same. Tuesday’s report from the Associated Press confirmed what’s been apparent for some time now: Next week, Las Vegas will get an NHL expansion team, the city’s first major-league sports franchise.

The NHL’s executive committee, which consists of nine owners, met last week with Commissioner Gary Bettman and reportedly voted unanimously in support of Las Vegas. The final step comes next Wednesday here in Las Vegas as the Board of Governors is expected to follow the committee’s lead and approve a team for Las Vegas to begin in the 2017-18 season.

One of the AP’s unnamed sources close to the situation called Las Vegas a “done deal” for expansion, and there has been no pushback from the league or anyone else. League spokesman Frank Brown said the league had no comment while prospective team owner Bill Foley, the person most singularly responsible for bringing the NHL to Las Vegas, is laying low until everything’s official.

Foley has played it cool throughout this protracted process, which started about a year and a half ago, but you’re under no obligation to do the same. Next week’s meeting and the approval on June 22 will be the date that Las Vegas officially becomes a major-league city, but June 14 feels like the date this community accepted hockey here as reality.

So what’s next? Some of that is already underway, including preparing land for a practice facility at Far Hills Avenue and the 215 Beltway in Summerlin. That facility could potentially house one of the organization’s minor-league affiliates, though decisions like that are still down the road.

More important is hiring a general manager, who will be in charge of the team’s hockey operations. The expansion draft is a year away still (check out some of the details here), but the work behind putting the team together will begin immediately.

There’s also the fun stuff like team name and jersey design, which likely will be the Black Knights and some variation of black, gold and gray. Both are meant to honor Foley’s alma mater, the United States Military Academy, so even if that name/color scheme isn’t exact, the real version likely won’t stray too far.

Personally, I’d prefer a nickname more closely tied to Las Vegas that also avoids the traditional gambling jokes, but I also believe Foley has earned the right to name the team whatever he wants. More to the point, he’s paying for that right, and I’m good with the guy signing the check naming his team.

Foley already gave the NHL $10 million ($2 million nonrefundable) during the application process, and the $500 million expansion fee buys him a lot of goodwill among the owners and Las Vegas locals.

From the owner’s perspective, that fee is a big reason to be on Foley’s side, because that’s money in their pockets. One of the reasons Quebec City, the only other city to get this far in the expansion process, won’t get a team at this time is that the current exchange rate would take a big bite out of that fee.

And from the locals’ perspective, not once during this have we been asked to spend our, or our tourists’, money on anything except tickets. T-Mobile Arena is a beautiful, $375 million building that anchors a fun new area toward the south end of the Strip, and our only cost comes as patrons, which is much appreciated, as the football stadium financing debate continues elsewhere.

This process has false-started a few times — the Sun and many other local media outlets booked trips to New York last fall that all but one of us canceled when we learned a few days beforehand an announcement wouldn’t actually happen — but it has just about reached its conclusion. Some who have lived here for decades might not believe it’s real until the puck actually drops; they feel so snake-bitten over how Las Vegas has been used and abused by professional leagues previously.

But this is different, so whether you want to react now or wait until Wednesday, the result is the same: The Entertainment Capital of the World finally has a major-league team.

Taylor Bern can be reached at 948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Taylor on Twitter at twitter.com/taylorbern.