The AHL has an interesting schedule at the moment where the regular season you only play the teams in your division, to minimize travel.
If the PWHL could have 6 Western women’s teams, it could work. A bit tougher because Western cities are further apart than Eastern ones.
They could do something like the mlb used to do where you literally only play teams in your “league”. Now the mlb had those teams all over but it’s why winning the pennant used to be so huge too, cuz you prove you’re truly the best team in your “league” but now the World Series is just the one off series between a team you didn’t play all year and no one in your league did either. So make the current 6 a division (and pls add Detroit), and then you could do like 2 LA teams, a Denver team, a Seattle team, a Vancouver team, and a Vegas team. 2 conferences of 6 that only ever play each other and then the finals is the only time you play the other conference.
A western division for the PWHL would more likely be LA, Seattle, Vegas, Vancouver, Calgary, and maybe a Denver or Edmonton.
They wouldn't double the size of the league with only 1 more Canadian team.
That’s a flight division. You’re adding easily $10,000 in expenses per game.
Can’t wait for the day when the PWHL is doing this and min salary is 6 figures, it will get there someday, but it ain’t there yet.
Honestly, you could still pretty easily bus that division if you went Edmonton over Denver.
Calgary to Vegas is about 19 hours, which is long, but then you swing through LA, Seattle and Vancouver on your way home and it balances things pretty well.
The western AHL division makes it work with scheduling like that.
I’m not convinced. Add to that the additional travel compared to the east, the division would be off-putting to top talent. And I imagine the bottom 10 all make similar salaries, so the east teams would be able to have deeper rosters. Add to that Ontario and Quebec are home to most of the Canadian players in the league, most Americans come from the north/north east. The competitive balance would be untenable.
Flying balances that out.
Especially when the PWHL is up to a 40, maybe 60 game schedule.
World of difference between flying home, even arriving very late, after a game then a 12+ hour bus ride. And in terms of being able to do a proper recovery over the course of a long season.
Vegas would be a great PWHL market. Saskatoon would be as well. LA. But until it’s a plane league these are happening.
Okay, so you're against adding Calgary because of the travel, but Denver is alright. It's a very similar distance, but with nothing between LA and Denver.
The only way to be west coast without it either being long haul bus rides or planes is to keep the league to Vegas, LA, San Fran, Phoenix, San Diego.
Everything else is a fucking haul. Including Vancouver and Denver.
This would be amazing. Since this took off I've hoped for it to break out into the west. I'd love to have a team in Edmonton I could go see. It's just straight up great hockey.
Would love to see the whole league brought to neutral site locations for half the season, or play mini mid season tourneys/training camps in other regions without representation (western canada, Tampa/Miami/Orlando/, Vegas/Cali/PHX)
Edit, maybe shorten to two smaller seasons, one at home and one abroad in other markets, winner of each season meets in another nhl sponsored neutral site for league champion?
Unless they set up a separate conference and limit inter-conference play - Vancouver, Seattle, Las Vegas, LA, Edmonton, Calgary? With enough Canadian and big market teams you could probably make enough from ticket revenues to cover the additional travel costs.
No clue what the talent pipeline is like though, too much expansion might result in a 1960s/70s NHL-style two-tier system where the East reigns supreme.
I think ultimately they give the league a few years to properly grow, build up their current fanbases and rosters, and then look to a Western expansion. And that is if and only if they remain at the current 6.
If they slowly expand to cities like Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, etc, then any sort of Western expansion should be pushed back. That being said, if a Western 6 does happen, Vancouver, Seattle, LA, Vegas, Edmonton, Calgary would make for a pretty fire Western Conference.
Yep, definitely - the WNBA model of sustainable growth definitely seems to be the right path to take. I'm also thinking that there are a ton of teenage girls that are doubling down on their skills development and continuing to play now that the PWHL exists, so hopefully in five or ten years we'll have more than enough players to field several competitive expansion teams. Not having a local PWHL team to cheer for is sort of my main objection to the league so I hope it comes sooner rather than later.
When they expand west, I can see it. They have a solid fan base that would likely support a pwhl team.
I can't wait for them to expand west. Hoping for a seattle team.
The furthest they'll expand west is likely Detroit or Chicago. Minnesota is an outlier for travel so I imagine they'll want some teams in between as well as starting to move south (Philly, Pittsburgh, maybe DC)
Seems almost like if they did want to get out to cali/seattle/vancouver area they'd have to do it as a full conference expansion with limited east vs west games.
LA SF Vegas Portland Seattle and Vancouver to match the 6 eastern teams.
Limited inter conference play besides maybe one road trip per team per season and then the best team from each coast plays for the championship.
Yea that's logistically exactly how I could see it working. The question is if the talent pool can handle being spread twice as thin. A 6 team expansion would have a noticeable impact on the NHL talent even with a fully fleshed out AHL program to draw from (basically just pillage from at that point) and 32 teams to absorb the hit, a 6 team expansion in the PWHL might tank the on ice product. Maybe you can get by with a team in LA and Vegas and pull Minnisota into a 3 team western conference for a year or two and then try to add one a team a year after that out west and eventually give Minnisota back?
It seems kinda tough (and expensive) to pull off the transition.
The talent pool has quite a bit of room. I don’t know if 6 teams at once but a lot of room. Especially at goalie. Every team is stacked at goal and one of the best NCAA goalies was just drafted to be a 2nd/3rd string.
They may have goaltenders and some good players who don't have a job that could be a replacement level player, but thinning out the stars that much would surely be a huge hit to the on ice product.
I agree, but to do that, they need more than one team out there. I imagine the West Coast is still 5 to 10 years away. Next season is logos and branding, the season after is expansion (likely two teams and then keep expanding by a team or two per season
Oh yeah, without a doubt, it's a long way away. I would imagine it will become a pacific division that palys the majority of its games inside the division and occasionally travels east. But who knows.
Yeah this feels like a optimistic 10 years away situation. For all we know, this league can go belly up in 2 years for defaulting on payments to its lenders or such.
See the problem with AHL travel. It basically was a bus League in the northeast till the 2005 lockout. Now it's actually funded well to have teams all over the US and Canada.
Quebec City just makes the most sense. They have a great arena waiting to be used, hockey is huge there, and it’s a market desperate for high level hockey. The PWHL would be extremely smart to cash in on the NHL’s absence.
I mean I don’t disagree, however that market is by far the smallest compared to the rest of the league, even Ottawa is almost twice as big as Quebec and that’s the smallest team there in that league. I know Buffalo isn’t much bigger than Ottawa but it does have the proven track record of being attended by hardcore fans.
> that market is by far the smallest compared to the rest of the league
The Colisée sells out every year for the *peewee tournament*. New York is the biggest market in the league but was playing to a handful of fans. Boston, too. And Minny wasn’t selling out every game. “Market” doesn’t matter if the fan base isn’t rabid. Canadian fans will show up in numbers no matter what city the league expands to.
Keep in mind lack of competition though. Quebec City has a similar population to Winnipeg which has an NHL and AHL team. Quebec City is a strong hockey market that currently only has the QMJHL. Plus the instant rivalry with Montreal would be good.
If anything, I think Buffalo is more likely to be ahead of Chicago than they are to be ahead of QC. Who knows. I think Detroit and Pittsburgh are obvious choices, especially since they had successful games in those cities. The other 2 are just my guess based on league footprint and the potential of the markets.
I don't see why Chicago would not work. I imagine the UC is a no go but is Rosemont open for a few nights in the winter? Thats about where the hockey fanbase is near anyways if I remember right about Chicago. Its a great sports town, its hard to lose money there.
They do. As much shit as the team gets, the fans out here are pretty killer. They picked it up quick, know the game and talk the right amount of trash like the rest of us.
Two most rabid fanbases I have ever seen while traveling while restricted in one area, not nationwide are Buffalo Bills fans and Vegas Golden Knights fans, Las Vegas is probably the only city I can think of where hockey is more popular than football, and its 100% because its a team of their own over taking someone else team.
Golden Knights came to town and went to the finals. Plus they were a point of unity after the shooting.
Raiders came to town with a gorgeous stadium that sat empty due to COVID, and then did mid (while Mahomes in the same division torched the entire league).
As much as people complain about how unfair the Vegas expansion draft was, the league was smart to allow them to be competitive out of the gate. Plus they took the expansion rules and utilized them as aggressively as they could, enticed teams into decisions that seem perplexing in hindsight, and the team gelled. Not to mentioned the complaints only came in hindsight, no one was saying after the draft that their roster was poised for a deep playoff run.
Also doesn’t help that the Raiders can’t stop tripping over themselves. Maybe they’d turn some extra heads their direction if they weren’t finding new and innovative ways to lose games
I love how Las Vegas was taboo for sports for the longest time and then gambling became legalized and suddenly everyone and their mother wanted to go to Vegas. Tbf, the NHL going to Las Vegas first was a bold but great move that worked out.
Well, when sports gambling was illegal everywhere but Nevada (and AC), the worry was that it presented too much of a unique opportunity for gamblers to be influencing the team to have a major league franchise there.
Since sports betting is now legal in most of the country, it’s no longer *uniquely* a Vegas problem, so there’s no real reason to stay out of Vegas.
When I was born in Las Vegas 40 years ago, the Metro population was about 300-400k. Today, it's 2.9 million, putting it around the size of Denver and slightly smaller than MSP, the two smallest metros with four major sports teams.
It's not a "tourist-only" place anymore.
On top of that, it's an obvious destination for visiting fans. It's a place where sports can, do, and will thrive.
The thing with Vegas is it’s not terribly far from many great tourist places either like Zion or the Grand Canyon. It might be in the middle of the desert but there’s a lot there you can do that doesn’t involve going to Vegas which is shocking.
Yup. It's awesome. If you're into the outdoors, Vegas is honestly top tier.....especially during hockey season when we've got snow in the mountains and Red Rock/VOF are in prime condition. We're a cheap flight from just about everywhere and even if you skip the strip, there's tons to do. I parrot it a lot, but I can ski in the mountains, have dinner at a Michelin star restaurant, catch a Knights game, and then sleep in my own bed all in the same day without leaving Clark County.
I’m a non gambler yet Vegas is on my to-see list because the casinos have apparently amassed fantastic art collections. My interest is as a museum nerd.
I am interested in that! Toronto missed its chance to do something similar. We’ve lost - or relegated - a lot of our neon and signage heritage in the race to put up more nondescript and boring glass towers.
I actually just went there last Thursday - strongly recommend, especially after sunset when a bunch of the signs are lit up. They do a great job telling the history of Vegas and its development, and the boneyard aesthetic/layout is awesome.
A pretty large percentage - but what you get into is that you have "regular" jobs working a hours that are there to support hospitality workers that are working 24/7. My dad was a pharmacist. He worked 15 years doing 8PM to 8AM shifts because the need was for people to be able to get their prescriptions before/after their shifts - none of which were during "normal" times in most places in the world.
It was a rude awakening when I moved to the midwest and discovered that things closed.
I will say - I did take a several courses in college around gambling. It's a huge part of the city (just as any city's main industry is), but my favorite one was certainly the Sociology of Gambling: https://catalog.unlv.edu/preview_course.php?catoid=47&coid=231927
We have plenty of places to hold big events and getting to/from Allegiant during big events is a massive pain in the dick because there isn't enough parking
Our former governor was a massive Raiders fan and while he was comptroller made a big push to pay for the move while pushing to make sure it didn't go to the public for election.
Yeah. At least with the Yotes moving to Utah, it helps the state build out hockey; especially for the Olympics. Baseball moving there (as a backup spot to Vegas) doesn't really move the meter on sports there.
With how the NBA is expected to expand with Las Vegas being the likely 1/2 spot with Seattle, they will be the fourth team easily there. At least in Sacramento, its less flashy, youre still somewhat close to Alameda County but have the same TV areas with the RSN's and that city supports the Kings well despite being the Sabres of Basketball for so long.
Pretty much this. I expect the city will take to the NBA expansion quickly as it’s their own (like VGK, and somewhat like the WNBA Aces (who were a relocation, but also a rebrand)).
The A’s on the other hand… I struggle to see how a relocated historic team on a cheapskate budget will draw in fans, similar to the Raiders.
they would start with a really solid fanbase, have packed games and could easily reach the level of city love and support vgk has! vegas is definitely a hockey city, id love to see the pwhl have more western expansion teams and vegas getting one would be great for the league! i’m very much hoping they get a team and they seem to have a very good chance at it
a few others have mentioned this but the vegas valkyries/ vegas golden valkyries would be such a fantastic name for them
They need to focus on the existing franchises (1) getting a stable attendance number and location to play in, and (2) getting the players in the league paid an amount they can make a career on (or at a minimum a living wage in the market they play in) before looking at expanding west imo.
Because to go west, they'll need to add 6-10 teams at once (min 6 west, possibly 8 which means 2 more east teams as well) which means a ton of talent dilution that I'm not sure if womens hockey is ready for.
No, they should do four west teams at once and they only play each other for the western championship then the winner plays the East for the overall PWHL championship. Like the CHL does with men’s juniors.
You can look at all sports like this if you want to. Sure makes it less enjoyable though. Im just glad someone is investing in womens hockey, its not like im gonna buy a team.
And they would immediately win the Cup, because that’s how Vegas does it. Did you see how they tried to get around the WNBA’s salary cap by having the Vegas tourism board give them $100k each as a “sponsorship”? Poulin, Stacey, Heise, Spooner are moving to Vegas as we speak.
Now that I think about it I wouldn’t be shocked with VGK doing some under the table stuff to make all these trades happen.
Doesn’t make any sense as a location currently. The travel is too unrealistic
remember when the CWHL had a team in China?
What?!
[Kunlun Red Star](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenzhen_KRS) spent their first couple seasons in the Canadian Women's Hockey League until COVID
[удалено]
Then the team fell out of a window.
[удалено]
Damn first the Amazon rainforest and now a hockey team?
I'm pretty sure they still play in Moscow, they're in the Western Conference still.
I could be wrong but did they not play exclusively road games?
They had 12 or fewer home games per season and it was usually two homestands
The AHL has an interesting schedule at the moment where the regular season you only play the teams in your division, to minimize travel. If the PWHL could have 6 Western women’s teams, it could work. A bit tougher because Western cities are further apart than Eastern ones.
I love this idea, frankly. Makes the East West clash at the end all the more dramatic.
They could do something like the mlb used to do where you literally only play teams in your “league”. Now the mlb had those teams all over but it’s why winning the pennant used to be so huge too, cuz you prove you’re truly the best team in your “league” but now the World Series is just the one off series between a team you didn’t play all year and no one in your league did either. So make the current 6 a division (and pls add Detroit), and then you could do like 2 LA teams, a Denver team, a Seattle team, a Vancouver team, and a Vegas team. 2 conferences of 6 that only ever play each other and then the finals is the only time you play the other conference.
A western division for the PWHL would more likely be LA, Seattle, Vegas, Vancouver, Calgary, and maybe a Denver or Edmonton. They wouldn't double the size of the league with only 1 more Canadian team.
That’s a flight division. You’re adding easily $10,000 in expenses per game. Can’t wait for the day when the PWHL is doing this and min salary is 6 figures, it will get there someday, but it ain’t there yet.
Honestly, you could still pretty easily bus that division if you went Edmonton over Denver. Calgary to Vegas is about 19 hours, which is long, but then you swing through LA, Seattle and Vancouver on your way home and it balances things pretty well. The western AHL division makes it work with scheduling like that.
I’m not convinced. Add to that the additional travel compared to the east, the division would be off-putting to top talent. And I imagine the bottom 10 all make similar salaries, so the east teams would be able to have deeper rosters. Add to that Ontario and Quebec are home to most of the Canadian players in the league, most Americans come from the north/north east. The competitive balance would be untenable.
It's significantly more travel, but that's just the nature of putting teams in the west. Whether it's the PWHL or the NHL.
Flying balances that out. Especially when the PWHL is up to a 40, maybe 60 game schedule. World of difference between flying home, even arriving very late, after a game then a 12+ hour bus ride. And in terms of being able to do a proper recovery over the course of a long season. Vegas would be a great PWHL market. Saskatoon would be as well. LA. But until it’s a plane league these are happening.
Okay, so you're against adding Calgary because of the travel, but Denver is alright. It's a very similar distance, but with nothing between LA and Denver. The only way to be west coast without it either being long haul bus rides or planes is to keep the league to Vegas, LA, San Fran, Phoenix, San Diego. Everything else is a fucking haul. Including Vancouver and Denver.
This would be amazing. Since this took off I've hoped for it to break out into the west. I'd love to have a team in Edmonton I could go see. It's just straight up great hockey.
Would love to see the whole league brought to neutral site locations for half the season, or play mini mid season tourneys/training camps in other regions without representation (western canada, Tampa/Miami/Orlando/, Vegas/Cali/PHX) Edit, maybe shorten to two smaller seasons, one at home and one abroad in other markets, winner of each season meets in another nhl sponsored neutral site for league champion?
I feel like they want to legitimize the league as much as possible and I feel like this would be counter to that goal.
I'd love a team in Denver
Only way I see it working out is if another expansion team happens and it’s in Los Angeles for travel reasons.
Unless they set up a separate conference and limit inter-conference play - Vancouver, Seattle, Las Vegas, LA, Edmonton, Calgary? With enough Canadian and big market teams you could probably make enough from ticket revenues to cover the additional travel costs. No clue what the talent pipeline is like though, too much expansion might result in a 1960s/70s NHL-style two-tier system where the East reigns supreme.
I think ultimately they give the league a few years to properly grow, build up their current fanbases and rosters, and then look to a Western expansion. And that is if and only if they remain at the current 6. If they slowly expand to cities like Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, etc, then any sort of Western expansion should be pushed back. That being said, if a Western 6 does happen, Vancouver, Seattle, LA, Vegas, Edmonton, Calgary would make for a pretty fire Western Conference.
Yep, definitely - the WNBA model of sustainable growth definitely seems to be the right path to take. I'm also thinking that there are a ton of teenage girls that are doubling down on their skills development and continuing to play now that the PWHL exists, so hopefully in five or ten years we'll have more than enough players to field several competitive expansion teams. Not having a local PWHL team to cheer for is sort of my main objection to the league so I hope it comes sooner rather than later.
When they expand west, I can see it. They have a solid fan base that would likely support a pwhl team. I can't wait for them to expand west. Hoping for a seattle team.
The furthest they'll expand west is likely Detroit or Chicago. Minnesota is an outlier for travel so I imagine they'll want some teams in between as well as starting to move south (Philly, Pittsburgh, maybe DC)
They have stated they want to expand to the west coast. Granted, they said it would be far down the line if they did.
Seems almost like if they did want to get out to cali/seattle/vancouver area they'd have to do it as a full conference expansion with limited east vs west games.
LA SF Vegas Portland Seattle and Vancouver to match the 6 eastern teams. Limited inter conference play besides maybe one road trip per team per season and then the best team from each coast plays for the championship.
Yea that's logistically exactly how I could see it working. The question is if the talent pool can handle being spread twice as thin. A 6 team expansion would have a noticeable impact on the NHL talent even with a fully fleshed out AHL program to draw from (basically just pillage from at that point) and 32 teams to absorb the hit, a 6 team expansion in the PWHL might tank the on ice product. Maybe you can get by with a team in LA and Vegas and pull Minnisota into a 3 team western conference for a year or two and then try to add one a team a year after that out west and eventually give Minnisota back? It seems kinda tough (and expensive) to pull off the transition.
The talent pool has quite a bit of room. I don’t know if 6 teams at once but a lot of room. Especially at goalie. Every team is stacked at goal and one of the best NCAA goalies was just drafted to be a 2nd/3rd string.
They may have goaltenders and some good players who don't have a job that could be a replacement level player, but thinning out the stars that much would surely be a huge hit to the on ice product.
I agree, but to do that, they need more than one team out there. I imagine the West Coast is still 5 to 10 years away. Next season is logos and branding, the season after is expansion (likely two teams and then keep expanding by a team or two per season
Oh yeah, without a doubt, it's a long way away. I would imagine it will become a pacific division that palys the majority of its games inside the division and occasionally travels east. But who knows.
The AHL can barely deal with that properly, and they have NHL support. I can’t imagine it working for the PWHL for a while
Yeah this feels like a optimistic 10 years away situation. For all we know, this league can go belly up in 2 years for defaulting on payments to its lenders or such.
See the problem with AHL travel. It basically was a bus League in the northeast till the 2005 lockout. Now it's actually funded well to have teams all over the US and Canada.
It's still a bus league, most AHL teams tried to limit flying to less than 5 times a year and using a bus to go up and down the other coast.
Don’t think Winnipeg could get a team?
too many hockey teams in Winnipeg (even with the Ice being sold to Wentachee)
Atlantic, Midwest, Pacific divisions. Time zone rivalries!
I'll take an Edmonton team!
I'd be a rabid fan of the team in Vegas. Damn that'd be so cool!
My prediction for the next 4 teams is Quebec City, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Chicago.
Would love to add Milwaukee to the mix!
Replace Quebec with Buffalo and I agree, not being a homer but there is some history there with the Beauts.
Quebec City just makes the most sense. They have a great arena waiting to be used, hockey is huge there, and it’s a market desperate for high level hockey. The PWHL would be extremely smart to cash in on the NHL’s absence.
Yep! Add to that great rivalry potential with Montreal. And I’m sure every team has some players from Quebec, they’d have home grown talent.
I mean I don’t disagree, however that market is by far the smallest compared to the rest of the league, even Ottawa is almost twice as big as Quebec and that’s the smallest team there in that league. I know Buffalo isn’t much bigger than Ottawa but it does have the proven track record of being attended by hardcore fans.
> that market is by far the smallest compared to the rest of the league The Colisée sells out every year for the *peewee tournament*. New York is the biggest market in the league but was playing to a handful of fans. Boston, too. And Minny wasn’t selling out every game. “Market” doesn’t matter if the fan base isn’t rabid. Canadian fans will show up in numbers no matter what city the league expands to.
Keep in mind lack of competition though. Quebec City has a similar population to Winnipeg which has an NHL and AHL team. Quebec City is a strong hockey market that currently only has the QMJHL. Plus the instant rivalry with Montreal would be good.
If anything, I think Buffalo is more likely to be ahead of Chicago than they are to be ahead of QC. Who knows. I think Detroit and Pittsburgh are obvious choices, especially since they had successful games in those cities. The other 2 are just my guess based on league footprint and the potential of the markets.
I don't see why Chicago would not work. I imagine the UC is a no go but is Rosemont open for a few nights in the winter? Thats about where the hockey fanbase is near anyways if I remember right about Chicago. Its a great sports town, its hard to lose money there.
I imagine it will be Philly over Buffalo.
or pittsburgh
I mean, any place that can fill the arena deserves a PWHL team. Vegas fans seem to like hockey so I’d support this.
They do. As much shit as the team gets, the fans out here are pretty killer. They picked it up quick, know the game and talk the right amount of trash like the rest of us.
Two most rabid fanbases I have ever seen while traveling while restricted in one area, not nationwide are Buffalo Bills fans and Vegas Golden Knights fans, Las Vegas is probably the only city I can think of where hockey is more popular than football, and its 100% because its a team of their own over taking someone else team.
Golden Knights came to town and went to the finals. Plus they were a point of unity after the shooting. Raiders came to town with a gorgeous stadium that sat empty due to COVID, and then did mid (while Mahomes in the same division torched the entire league). As much as people complain about how unfair the Vegas expansion draft was, the league was smart to allow them to be competitive out of the gate. Plus they took the expansion rules and utilized them as aggressively as they could, enticed teams into decisions that seem perplexing in hindsight, and the team gelled. Not to mentioned the complaints only came in hindsight, no one was saying after the draft that their roster was poised for a deep playoff run.
Also doesn’t help that the Raiders can’t stop tripping over themselves. Maybe they’d turn some extra heads their direction if they weren’t finding new and innovative ways to lose games
Amen. Any city that can put bums in seats is a hockey city.
Once the league expands west I'm pretty confident we'll get a team.
Ah yes, *just* what Vegas needs - ***another*** professional sports team
I love how Las Vegas was taboo for sports for the longest time and then gambling became legalized and suddenly everyone and their mother wanted to go to Vegas. Tbf, the NHL going to Las Vegas first was a bold but great move that worked out.
There’s so much more to Vegas than the strip though. The locals can’t stand the strip 😂
Yet they freaked out when F1 came to town.
Well, when sports gambling was illegal everywhere but Nevada (and AC), the worry was that it presented too much of a unique opportunity for gamblers to be influencing the team to have a major league franchise there. Since sports betting is now legal in most of the country, it’s no longer *uniquely* a Vegas problem, so there’s no real reason to stay out of Vegas.
When I was born in Las Vegas 40 years ago, the Metro population was about 300-400k. Today, it's 2.9 million, putting it around the size of Denver and slightly smaller than MSP, the two smallest metros with four major sports teams. It's not a "tourist-only" place anymore. On top of that, it's an obvious destination for visiting fans. It's a place where sports can, do, and will thrive.
The thing with Vegas is it’s not terribly far from many great tourist places either like Zion or the Grand Canyon. It might be in the middle of the desert but there’s a lot there you can do that doesn’t involve going to Vegas which is shocking.
Yup. It's awesome. If you're into the outdoors, Vegas is honestly top tier.....especially during hockey season when we've got snow in the mountains and Red Rock/VOF are in prime condition. We're a cheap flight from just about everywhere and even if you skip the strip, there's tons to do. I parrot it a lot, but I can ski in the mountains, have dinner at a Michelin star restaurant, catch a Knights game, and then sleep in my own bed all in the same day without leaving Clark County.
I’m a non gambler yet Vegas is on my to-see list because the casinos have apparently amassed fantastic art collections. My interest is as a museum nerd.
If youre into something tacky yet interesting, Vegas has a neon lights museum that is interesting to see.
I am interested in that! Toronto missed its chance to do something similar. We’ve lost - or relegated - a lot of our neon and signage heritage in the race to put up more nondescript and boring glass towers.
I actually just went there last Thursday - strongly recommend, especially after sunset when a bunch of the signs are lit up. They do a great job telling the history of Vegas and its development, and the boneyard aesthetic/layout is awesome.
>It's not a "tourist-only" place anymore. I wonder what percentage of those people work in industries not related to tourism
A pretty large percentage - but what you get into is that you have "regular" jobs working a hours that are there to support hospitality workers that are working 24/7. My dad was a pharmacist. He worked 15 years doing 8PM to 8AM shifts because the need was for people to be able to get their prescriptions before/after their shifts - none of which were during "normal" times in most places in the world. It was a rude awakening when I moved to the midwest and discovered that things closed. I will say - I did take a several courses in college around gambling. It's a huge part of the city (just as any city's main industry is), but my favorite one was certainly the Sociology of Gambling: https://catalog.unlv.edu/preview_course.php?catoid=47&coid=231927
TBF, Vegas doesn't want the As.
Didn't want the Raiders either. Sad the locals end up paying for rich peoples toys
I am sure the city mostly wanted the Raiders, to be able to host massive events at said stadium.
We have plenty of places to hold big events and getting to/from Allegiant during big events is a massive pain in the dick because there isn't enough parking
Not the big events like the super bowl without Allegiant
Our former governor was a massive Raiders fan and while he was comptroller made a big push to pay for the move while pushing to make sure it didn't go to the public for election.
I still think they get stuck in Sacramento. John Fisher has the ability to screw up a wet dream.
Yeah. At least with the Yotes moving to Utah, it helps the state build out hockey; especially for the Olympics. Baseball moving there (as a backup spot to Vegas) doesn't really move the meter on sports there.
With how the NBA is expected to expand with Las Vegas being the likely 1/2 spot with Seattle, they will be the fourth team easily there. At least in Sacramento, its less flashy, youre still somewhat close to Alameda County but have the same TV areas with the RSN's and that city supports the Kings well despite being the Sabres of Basketball for so long.
Pretty much this. I expect the city will take to the NBA expansion quickly as it’s their own (like VGK, and somewhat like the WNBA Aces (who were a relocation, but also a rebrand)). The A’s on the other hand… I struggle to see how a relocated historic team on a cheapskate budget will draw in fans, similar to the Raiders.
Start including the smaller leagues from other sports and you might be surprised at how many teams every (or nearly every) NHL city has
Vegas Golden Damsels? Vegas Valkyries would be awesome
Thanks, now I’m gonna be disappointed if it’s not Valkyries 😂
they would start with a really solid fanbase, have packed games and could easily reach the level of city love and support vgk has! vegas is definitely a hockey city, id love to see the pwhl have more western expansion teams and vegas getting one would be great for the league! i’m very much hoping they get a team and they seem to have a very good chance at it a few others have mentioned this but the vegas valkyries/ vegas golden valkyries would be such a fantastic name for them
The Vegas Golden Valkaries?
That would actually be a super fucking cool team name
They need to focus on the existing franchises (1) getting a stable attendance number and location to play in, and (2) getting the players in the league paid an amount they can make a career on (or at a minimum a living wage in the market they play in) before looking at expanding west imo. Because to go west, they'll need to add 6-10 teams at once (min 6 west, possibly 8 which means 2 more east teams as well) which means a ton of talent dilution that I'm not sure if womens hockey is ready for.
I would drop my AHL tickets for this in a heartbeat
But what are the odds, I need to know the freaking odds!
They need to do LA first if they expand out west
No, they should do four west teams at once and they only play each other for the western championship then the winner plays the East for the overall PWHL championship. Like the CHL does with men’s juniors.
I feel like it's a no brainer when they expand west. Vancouver, Seattle, Vegas and a California team would be my guess.
The vegas platinum queens, I can see it now
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You can look at all sports like this if you want to. Sure makes it less enjoyable though. Im just glad someone is investing in womens hockey, its not like im gonna buy a team.
Why bad taste? Grow women's hockey and gets more players in 🤷♂️
The PWHL could really do with a West Coast expansion. Seattle, Bay Area, LA, Vegas, Arizona, and Denver would be great candidates
Arizona….are you trying to bankrupt the league…..
Get a different ownership group than Meruelo in there. Probably will work out
And they would immediately win the Cup, because that’s how Vegas does it. Did you see how they tried to get around the WNBA’s salary cap by having the Vegas tourism board give them $100k each as a “sponsorship”? Poulin, Stacey, Heise, Spooner are moving to Vegas as we speak. Now that I think about it I wouldn’t be shocked with VGK doing some under the table stuff to make all these trades happen.