NHL in Las Vegas will have its distractions

The notorious saying, "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas," doesn't apply to Jarrod Skalde.

When he left Las Vegas 21 years ago, after his only minor-league season with the International Hockey League's Thunder, he left town with his future wife, Erin.

"Yeah, you could say I had a pretty good experience playing hockey in Las Vegas," the 45-year-old Guelph Storm head coach said with a chuckle. "She definitely is my biggest and fondest memory from playing there."

The Associated Press reported Tuesday that Las Vegas will be introduced next week as the first NHL expansion team since the Minnesota Wild and Columbus Blue Jackets entered the league in 2000.

From a players' perspective, Skalde said, the gambling and entertainment mecca  was an interesting and exciting place to play.

'Always a buzz'

"There always was a buzz, even about our minor-league hockey team," said the well-travelled Skalde, a Memorial Cup champion with the 1989-90 Oshawa Generals whose 16-season pro career included eight different NHL teams, stops in Europe, and 15 different minor-league cities.

"With Las Vegas, everything from grocery stores to the dry cleaners was open 24 hours. It was different. But after a month life was completely normal. You fell into a routine.

"You stay off the strip. I know a few guys would maybe play some black jack on a Friday night after a game. But I'm not aware of any teammates who got into any trouble."

So why has the NHL executive committee decided to endorse Las Vegas to begin play in the fall of 2017 and not Quebec City?

There are three main reasons and not necessarily in this order:

► The NHL would like to correct the imbalance of teams they have in the Eastern and Western Conferences. Adding Las Vegas will mean 15 teams in the West and 16 in the East. If someone came forward from Seattle or Portland, Ore., those cities likely would have been favoured over Quebec City, too.

Weak Canadian dollar

► The Canadian dollar is not as strong as when the Atlanta Thrashers moved to become the Winnipeg Jets in May 2011. Then the Canadian dollar was worth about 97 cents compared to the U.S. buck, about 20 cents more than it is today.

► The NHL never will admit this, but it also has a problem with the Quebec City ownership group fronted by Pierre Karl Peladeau. According to canadianbusiness.com, the Peladeau family is 80th on the list of richest Canadians, worth an estimated $1.09-billion, 10 spots behind the Molson family, which owns the Montreal Canadiens and nine spots behind Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk. But I'm not sure money is the issue. I keep hearing there are philosophical differences between NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and Peladeau.

The Las Vegas ownership group is fronted Bill Foley and the Maloof Family. The Maloofs own a hotel just off the Vegas strip and have owned the NBA Houston Rockets and Sacramento Kings. There would appear to be no problem coming up with the $500 million US expansion fee.

The Texas-born Foley is chairman of the board for large title insurance company, Fidelity National Financial, and he also runs Foley Food and Wine Society. He claimed he fell in love with hockey playing pickup games on the street outside his home when he lived in Ottawa as a boy. His father, who was in the U.S. Air Force, was stationed there at the time.

New arena

Bettman's mandate as commissioner always has been to grow the game in the U.S. He's had success with Stanley Cup wins in the Sunbelt cities such as Dallas, Tampa Bay, Carolina, Anaheim and Los Angeles. But there continue to be problems with attendance in Arizona, South Florida and Carolina.

There is a risk with Las Vegas, but the Foley-Maloof team reports it has 13,200 deposits for season tickets and will play out of the brand new 17,500-seat T-Mobile Arena that recently opened for business on the south end of the strip.

That 13,200 season-ticket base would already put the Las Vegas Black Knights (that's what many believe the team will be called because one of Foley's companies is called Black Knight Financial Services) ahead of the Hurricanes (12,203) in average attendance and likely surpass the Coyotes (13,433) and Islanders (13,626) with a walk-up gate.

Still, it would have been nice to see Quebec City back in the league for the first time since the Nordiques departed for Denver in 1995. Maybe Quebec City is next in line for relocation.