Are you a fan of Las Vegas and perhaps also of the National Hockey League? In that case we got some good news to share. According to cbc.ca, the city of Las Vegas handed in an official application on Monday (the last day to apply) to get its very own NHL team! Aside from Las Vegas, Quebec was the only other city to send in an application.
An application to NHL costs approximately $10 million, including $2 million nonrefundable. In addition, a franchise is expected to cost around $500 million. There are two more stages left of the NHL expansion process, which ends on August 10th.
If Las Vegas gets its own team it won't be able to participate in the league until the 2017 / 2018 season. Daniel Negreanu, a big fan of the sport and also a part of the Founding 75 (a group helping to sell NHL hockey to Las Vegas and Nevada residents), is one of many Las Vegas residents who will be extremely happy if the city gets its own ice hockey team. In fact, he got his four seasons tickets reserved and has sold plenty of others.
"The town's starving, absolutely starving, for a professional sports franchise," Negreanu told TheStar in a phone interview earlier this year. "I've found the support to be overwhelming. People that live here, they're dying for this."
He added: "This is really what it's missing is something to cheer for as a group. Even those that are not hockey fans, Las Vegas, they know how to put on a show. They're going to make it a spectacle. It'll be more than just coming to a hockey game. It'll attract all kinds of different fans that maybe don't even really get the game yet."
