Vegas Golden Knights proving Vegas and hockey is like a PB and J

“Hockey will never work in the desert.” Those were the cries of many when the Vegas Golden Knights entered the NHL in 2017, and how wrong those claims have proved to be.

Because, not only have the Vegas Golden Knights absolutely taken the hockey world by storm on and off the ice, there will now be two professional hockey teams in Las Vegas.

Announced earlier today, the Vegas Golden Knights have purchased an American Hockey League franchise membership from Spurs Sports & Entertainment, which currently operates the San Antonio Rampage in San Antonio, Texas.

In a nutshell, the Rampage, the current AHL affiliate of the St. Louis Blues, will see out the remainder of this year in San Antonio before moving to Henderson in Nevada for the start of the 2020-21 regular season.

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As is the case with most of these things, the purchase and relocation is subject to approval from the American Hockey League Board of Governors.

And, as to be expected, specific details regarding a team name, logo, home arena etc. won’t be announced until everything is signed, sealed and delivered.

Although, according to Jesse Granger of The Athletic, the Golden Knights’ new AHL affiliate could be named the Henderson Silver Knights, which is a pretty cool name in my opinion.

This announcement also signals the end of Vegas’ relationship with the Chicago Wolves, who could now become the AHL affiliate of the St. Louis Blues, which would make more sense for all parties.

This is another significant day in the history of the Vegas Golden Knights and, before we delve in to what this exactly means long-term, this is what Vegas Golden Knights Owner Bill Foley had to say in an official statement, released via nhl.com/goldenknights:

“Since our initial season ticket drive began five years ago in February 2015, we have witnessed first-hand the incredible passion and enthusiasm our community has for hockey. By every relevant metric, the growth of the game here the last few years at all levels has been remarkable. We could not be more proud to bring a second professional hockey club to the Valley to accelerate this growth even further.”

That leads us nicely into what this means for the Vegas Golden Knights.

First and foremost, having an AHL team in the same State will be hugely beneficial for the Golden Knights in a plethora of different ways, including being able to call and send players down and not have them have to trek halfway across the country, while it will also allow the front office to assess the talent in their system with a much closer eye.

It will allow the Golden Knights to effectively streamline their hockey operations and have everything at their fingertips, which should only be conducive to long-term success.

But the biggest positive is that both the coaching staff and the front office will have a closer link to the organization’s prospects in the AHL, making it much easier to assess talent and also give certain prospects more opportunity to have exposure to the Golden Knights.

This is also a big win for the fans.

As we have seen over the last few years, hockey and Las Vegas has gone together like a fine PB&J sandwich (I’m hungry now).

What we mean by that is people in Nevada sure do love their hockey and having an AHL franchise in Henderson will only serve to whet the appetite of those hockey-loving fans.

It will also only continue to grow this beloved game of ours in an area that isn’t normally associated with hockey, while hardcore fans of the Golden Knights will now get the opportunity to go and watch the likes of Dylan Coghlan, Zach Whitecloud and, in the future, Kaedan Korczak and Jack Dugan strut their stuff in the AHL before making the leap to the NHL.

This will only increase the bond between players and fans, allowing fans to follow the journeys of certain players from the ground floor up to the big lights of the NHL at T-Mobile Arena.

Overall, this is just yet another home run by Bill Foley and the Vegas Golden Knights with Nevada and Las Vegas officially a hockey hotbed.

It seems like an eternity ago that there were doubts a professional hockey franchise would actually work in the desert, but now there will be two and it is testament to just how crazy and passionate Las Vegas is for ice hockey.

As I have said already, hockey and Las Vegas is as good a combination as a fine peanut butter and jelly sandwich.