The NHL won’t consider a proposal for a new franchise in Las Vegas until sometime next year, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman announced.
Although the NHL is has scheduled meetings in December, those meetings won’t discuss potential NHL expansion, which Bettman said only will be done if it is beneficial to the NHL and its current teams.
Las Vegas is high on the list of potential cities to gain an NHL franchise, and local businessman Bill Foley says he won’t stop his crusade to bring an NHL franchise to Las Vegas, which hosts the NHL’s annual awards program and is a popular destination for many professional hockey players.
The NHL’s delay in making a decision on league expansion didn’t surprise Foley.
“We knew it was a possibility, and we’ve been in communication indirectly with the NHL,” Foley told the Las Vegas Review Journal. “We know we continue to make progress, and nobody has told us ‘no’ at this point. So it’s still moving forward.”
Foley wants a Las Vegas NHL franchise to play at the under-construction Las Vegas Arena, which is slated to open in mid 2016 and is located west of the Las Vegas Strip and between the New York New York and Monte Carlo casinos.
MGM Resorts International partnered with AEG to build the arena, which can seat up to 15,000 hockey fans and already sold 14,000 season tickets for a potential NHL franchise.
Although the NHL won’t discuss expansion during its meetings scheduled December 7-8, it might take up the issue during its meetings scheduled during NHL All-Star Weekend in Nashville on January 30-31.
