[Bart9399]

Here was the attendance for the now-defunct minor league hockey team the Las Vegas Wranglers:

http://www.hockeydb.com/nhl-attendan...h.php?tmi=6525

I was always too busy and lazy to go over to the Orleans to see them play. Did they have a hockey atmosphere there?

From January 2015 (their last year):

"Despite finishing with a franchise-worst record of 20-44-8 last season under first-year coach Mike Madill, the team averaged 4,581 per game."

There seems to be a natural hockey following in Las Vegas.

[Grumpypotpie]

Originally Posted by Bart9399

Here was the attendance for the now-defunct minor league hockey team the Las Vegas Wranglers:

Las Vegas Wranglers yearly attendance at hockeydb.com

I was always too busy and lazy to go over to the Orleans to see them play. Did they have a hockey atmosphere there?

From January 2015 (their last year):

"Despite finishing with a franchise-worst record of 20-44-8 last season under first-year coach Mike Madill, the team averaged 4,581 per game."

There seems to be a natural hockey following in Las Vegas.

It will help that there are natural geographic rivalries with Arizona, LA, and Anaheim.

[gwillyfromphilly]

The moment you realize Las Vegas is actually getting an NHL team.

[DGarcia879]

From a dallas stars fan To the people in vegas: your city finally got a major league pro team. Please, support them 24/7. Congrats Sin City or Sin City Scorpions that is, looking forward to 2017-18

[logline]

Originally Posted by Grumpypotpie

I just can't envision a scenario where they wait until they are in Las Vegas for the NHL awards to make this announcement and then say they aren't getting a team. Even Bettman wouldn't pull a move like that.

Very true... you don't announce a date for another announcement that's going to be disappointing... especially in the city you're announcing it in. That would be world-class stupidity by the PR people.

We're getting a hockey team.

[Willy702]

Originally Posted by Bart9399

Here was the attendance for the now-defunct minor league hockey team the Las Vegas Wranglers:

Las Vegas Wranglers yearly attendance at hockeydb.com

I was always too busy and lazy to go over to the Orleans to see them play. Did they have a hockey atmosphere there?

From January 2015 (their last year):

"Despite finishing with a franchise-worst record of 20-44-8 last season under first-year coach Mike Madill, the team averaged 4,581 per game."

There seems to be a natural hockey following in Las Vegas.

Here is the attendance for a minor league team in the hockey mad city of Toronto, a place everyone is convinced should get another NHL team. This is a higher level team than the Wranglers and players on this team regularly are called up to play for the beloved Maple Leafs. It seats over 8,000 and is rarely sold out despite the fact Maple Leaf tickets are hundreds of dollars on the secondary market even for midweek games against less popular teams.

Toronto Marlies yearly attendance at hockeydb.com

Moral of the story is you can't read a thing into minor league attendance for any sport and think it tells you what a major league team will draw.

[canadian citizen]

willy70.


What you didn`t mention is that in the Province of Ontario, the Ontario Hockey League has a total of 20 teams, that cover the cities and towns, outside of Toronto and Ottawa. My point is that the Marlies are competing with at least 10 teams within a 100 miles of Toronto, in the OHL, which by the way is the place where many NHL players are drafted from.


How many hockey teams of any calibre , are in Nevada .......


Jim B.

[Camaro5]

Originally Posted by Bart9399

For any expansion team, it can be a long slog to respectability.

That's true and I'm hoping Vegas can be competitive within a few years. It would go a long way towards the success of the team.

The expansion draft should have some good players available so I think Vegas could do okay. When the Florida Panthers came into the league they made the Stanley Cup Final within three years. There's no reason that a new team has to be a cellar dweller for very long anymore.

[bostonguy1960]

Am I the only one who's heard the team may use Nevada instead of Las Vegas? Heard that possibility last month.

So much that's done for Florida instead of using Miami, a city down the road. Hmmm...

[Willy702]

Originally Posted by canadian citizen

willy70.


What you didn`t mention is that in the Province of Ontario, the Ontario Hockey League has a total of 20 teams, that cover the cities and towns, outside of Toronto and Ottawa. My point is that the Marlies are competing with at least 10 teams within a 100 miles of Toronto, in the OHL, which by the way is the place where many NHL players are drafted from.


How many hockey teams of any calibre , are in Nevada .......


Jim B.

What does Nevada or Ontario have to do with this? People from Reno are rarely going to attend games just as people from Ottawa aren't going to attend Leafs games all too often. I'm well aware of the hockey landscape, I live in Toronto now. There are only three OHL teams an hour from me and they are in suburbs that Toronto residents are not going to go to often. In any case these teams get 3,000-5,000 fans on an average night, not exactly an overwhelming number in a metro area with over 6 million people.

I don't think the Marlies suffer because of competition from OHL, that's a different product and fan base. The Marlies attendance isn't great because in the end its still minor league hockey and that has a limited following. No team in any market is capable of drawing 18,000 fans a game except NHL teams. To think Las Vegas could have bucked this trend when it had a minor league team or that fans of the minor league team are all the fans an NHL team would have is just not logical.