Las Vegas Hockey: Weekend Musings on Hawks
A week of action for the Las Vegas Hockey franchise came and went with a number of new hires and the stunning news that Bill Foley’s creation could have Hawks in the name? In these pre-hockey days all we can do is sit back and muse on the happenings, with things getting curious-er and curious-er.
HAWKS
The stuff that has everybody excited first is the revelation that Las Vegas Hockey has filed for the trademarks and rights for three names for the franchise. On Thursday SportsLogos.Net revealed that Foley’s team had claimed the rights to use the names Red Hawks, Nighthawks and Desert Hawks, including registering a number of domain names associated with those names.
The next day Bill Bradley in the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported a conversation with Bill Foley. Quoting the Las Vegas Hockey owner, that in addition to those three names, the club was in the process of registering two other names (more hawks?). Somehow, out of those five names (three registered and two pending) Foley has whittled his way down to a final four names.
So we are looking at birds in our future? The Las Vegas Desert Hawks? Sin City Nighthawks? The Birds? Of course, I am still holding out for either the Nevada Turkey Vultures or the Las Vegas Chukwallas (yeah, I know, its a lizard but stay with me). But, if nothing else, we may soon have pure scientific proof that the Hawk comes before the puck.
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Okay, that was bad. But then give me some real ice hockey to write about. This pre-hockey-team-we-have-a-franchise-but-not-yet stuff is causing my brain to bleed.
And of course, local websites like the Review-Journal are now rolling all over each other doing surveys of which Hawk is the Las Vegas Fan favorite. As of Saturday morning the Nighthawks were solidly leading in the R-J poll.
HIRING WHO?
The Las Vegas Hockey hires this week were going along boringly (Director of Hockey Legal Affairs, snore) until this tidbit popped up. GM George McPhee hired his old buddy Dave Prior as Goaltender Coach.
What?
It was only a few weeks ago that McPhee dismissed reporters questions about hiring a coach, because what he needed right away were scouts. Coaches, McPhee seemed to feel, were an un-needed luxury at this stage of the franchise. What was most immediately needed were scouting eyes. He needed experienced player development folks to help build the institutional knowledge of the amateur and pro talent out in hockeyland in preparation of 2017.
So now he hires a goaltender coach? A guy McPhee has known since they were kids growing up together in Guelph, Ontario. Is this nepotism?
Maybe to some extent. I earlier wrote about how McPhee is building a Washington Capitals West by poaching a lot of front office talent from hi old haunts. But Prior also brings a lot of contacts into the game, and one thing McPhee has been doing is broadening the reach of his contacts.
Consider his hire of Kelly McCrimmon, owner, GM and coach of the Brandon Wheat Kings. McCrimmon is well-tied into many levels of junior hockey as well as an important cog in the Canada National Hockey Team apparatus. In one fell swoop McPhee made a huge step up in getting a front porch view of North American junior hockey. He also added a man that holds the respect of a ton of high talent level Canadian players.
In much the same mold, Prior is a respected goaltender coach, but he also spent a good chunk of time working with the German National Team including a couple of Olympics. He has lots of contacts in Europe.
No doubt Prior’s initial brief is to spearhead the building of the scouting department for Europe before he settles down as Goaltending guru. At one in the same time McPhee has brought on a seasoned scout (Prior spent seven years early in his career as a scout), took a big step up in opening a door into the European milieu, and added a smart mind to the mix of building the right organizational attitude to the franchise.
Oh, and he was able to get a job for his old running buddy. Not much of a negative there.
REAL HOCKEY
While my wife (and most of the world) has been glued to the Rio Olympics, I have been keeping tabs on the Ivan Hlinka Memorial Cup. There national U18 teams have been skating it out, reportedly under the eyes of McPhee and McCrimmon.
The young Canadians landed a 5th place finish, beating Finland 4-3 in their final game. Russia landed Bronze and Sweden is 4th. Meanwhile unbeaten USA faces off against the Czech Republic in the championship tilt Saturday morning our time, 5:30pm local. Non-olympic gold sure looks positive, as Team USA already beat the Czechs 4-2 earlier in the tournament.
Go Team USA!
Of course McPhee and McCrimmon aren’t just sightseeing. The most important reason to be in the Czech Republic and Slovakia for the tournament is to get a look at the young skaters. With an entry draft coming less then a year away, several of those young skaters could end up in the Las Vegas Hockey organization.
Another week, another bunch of non-ice-time action for the still un-named Las Vegas Hockey Franchise. There at least was a little real hockey to muse about.
But do I dare say it?
GO HAWKS!
And you know, that actually didn’t feel bad.