Las Vegas Hockey General Manager George McPhee has been a busy boy since his hire last month. Not only has he been buying a house. He has hired half of the Washington Capitals scouting department, gone scouting in Europe. But best yet, next week for the very first time, the staff of the still nameless NHL franchise will sit down for organizational meetings together.
Reported in an interview with Yahoo Sports Puck Daddy Q&A, McPhee talked about how he was going about building the Las Vegas Hockey franchise from the ground up.
"Well, I’m going to do as much scouting as I can. We’re having our meetings in Las Vegas on Sept. 6, 7, 8 – organizational meetings. We’re bringing in both the pro and amateur staffs and all of our directors and just go over the things you have to go over when you’re getting your organization organized. And then at that point we will discuss schedules and additional meeting times in the future and scouting schedules."
Who wouldn’t want to be a fly on that wall? Unfortunately I don’t think Las Vegas fans and media is invited. Right now owner Bill Foley has a collection of very talented people, all given some cool titles. Beginning with those meetings, McPhee truly starts building a team.
The hires of tech folks, contract and cap experts, and above all scouts have been coming fast and furious. The profile page on the franchise’s home page has 15 employees of the hockey operations staff and is expanding almost daily.
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I also expect that sometime during those meetings, McPhee and Foley won’t be able to resist letting the cat out of the bag. Maybe, just maybe the franchise will stop being just the generic Las Vegas Hockey, to the final, really cool and something-to-cheer for name.
I am still holding out for the Las Vegas Chukwallas.