Vegas Golden Knights

The Vegas Golden Knights are a professional ice hockey team based in the Las Vegas metropolitan area. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division in the Western Conference. Founded in 2017 as an expansion team, the Golden Knights are the first major sports franchise to represent Las Vegas. The team is owned by Black Knight Sports & Entertainment, a consortium led by Bill Foley and the Maloof family. Their home games are played at T-Mobile Arena on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada.

One of the few expansion franchises to experience immediate success, the Golden Knights have qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs in all four of their seasons and reached the Stanley Cup Finals in their first. Their 13 playoff wins en route to the 2018 Stanley Cup Finals are the most for a team during their inaugural postseason run.

History

Background and establishment

The NHL has had a presence in Las Vegas since 1991; that year, the city hosted the first outdoor game between two NHL teams – a preseason exhibition between the Los Angeles Kings and New York Rangers outside Caesars Palace. The Kings would subsequently organize "Frozen Fury" – a series of annual preseason games in Las Vegas against the Colorado Avalanche. The NHL Awards ceremonies have been held in Las Vegas since 2009. In 2009, the media speculated about a plan involving Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer to move the Phoenix Coyotes to Nevada.

Rumors of a Las Vegas expansion team surfaced again in August 2014, pointing to a new indoor arena on the Strip (built as a joint venture between Anschutz Entertainment Group, owners of the Los Angeles Kings, and MGM Resorts International) as the potential home arena, although these rumors were denied by the league. In November 2014, an unconfirmed report stated that the league had selected billionaire businessman Bill Foley and the Maloof family (former owners of the National Basketball Association's Sacramento Kings, and founders of the Palms Casino Resort) to lead the ownership group for a Las Vegas expansion team. In December 2014, the NHL's board of governors decided to allow Foley to hold a season ticket drive to gauge interest in a Las Vegas team, though league commissioner Gary Bettman also warned the media to "not make more out of this than it is". The season ticket drive began in February 2015, with interested parties placing ten percent deposits for the 2016–17 season. The drive drew 5,000 deposits in its first day and a half, and reached its goal of 10,000 deposits by April 2015.

In June 2015, the league officially opened the window for prospective owners to bid on expansion teams. By this point, Foley had secured more than 13,200 season-ticket deposits. Two expansion applications were submitted: Foley's application for a Las Vegas team, and a bid from Quebecor to revive the Quebec Nordiques at a new arena in Quebec City. Both Las Vegas and Quebec were invited to move into Phase II of the league expansion bid in August 2015, and subsequently advanced to Phase III.

At the league owners' meeting on June 22, 2016, in Las Vegas, the Las Vegas expansion bid was approved by a unanimous vote, with play to begin in the 2017–18 NHL season. The team became the first major professional sports franchise to be based in Las Vegas, and the first NHL expansion team since 2000. Foley committed to pay the league's $500 million expansion fee and began the process of hiring the team's principal staff and determining its official identity. Foley announced that former Washington Capitals general manager George McPhee would be the franchise's first general manager. On November 22, 2016, the name was revealed as the Vegas Golden Knights.

Name

The team's name includes "Knights" as a homage to the Black Knights of the United States Military Academy, Foley's alma mater, and because knights were, according to Foley, "the epitome of the warrior class". Foley had hoped to name his team the Black Knights, but dropped that plan after encountering resistance from federal officials. Foley was unable to call the team the "Vegas Knights" because the London Knights owned the "Knights" name in Canada.

"Golden" was included in the name because gold is, as Foley stated, the "No. 1 precious metal", and because Nevada is the largest gold-producing state in the country. "Las" was omitted from the team's name because, according to Foley, residents tend to refer to the city simply as "Vegas", and because a four-word name would have been too long.

The United States Army opposed the team's trademark registration because their exhibition parachute team uses the same nickname; they dropped their opposition after negotiating a trademark coexistence agreement with the team. An objection was also raised by the College of Saint Rose because its sports teams use the same name; the Vegas team's initial trademark application was denied as a result, but was later approved on appeal. The team did clear the name with Clarkson University, which also uses the name Golden Knights