History of Hockey in Las Vegas

With Las Vegas set to join the NHL in the 2017-18 season, it would be a good idea to see what history there is in the city with bright lights. Thanks to the Las Vegas Review Journal, that history is posted. For those who want the cliff notes version, I'll provide that now:

• The earliest hockey team in Las Vegas began play in 1968, when the Gamblers played for three years in the California-Nevada Hockey league. They folded in 1971.
• Immediately after, the Outlaws formed and lasted two seasons as a semi-pro team.
• The Las Vegas Thunder joined the International Hockey League in 1993, and would last until 1999. Their biggest name players to play in the NHL? Pavol Demitra, Alexei Yashin, Curtis Joseph, and Radek Bonk, though many of them played while the 1994 lockout was in effect.
• The Las Vegas Wranglers would join the ECHL in 2003 and would play there until 2014, when like the Thunder, they couldn't find a new arena when their lease expired. Notable Wranglers to play in the NHL? Deryk Engelland and Adam Pardy.

With the T-Mobile Arena in place and within walking distance of the Las Vegas Strip, the new hockey team set to join the NHL will not have any issues with finding a place to play for a while. Even so, the relative lack of hockey history in Las Vegas can be viewed as both a benefit and a detriment. It's a benefit because it means it can build a history of success. However, the lack of history also means hockey in Las Vegas is a wild card because no one truly knows what will happen. Sure, there have been NHL exhibition games played there, but it's hardly indicative of future NHL success. Furthermore, seeing their closest competitors in Arizona have perpetual trouble drawing in fans, as well as Los Angeles and Anaheim being nearby means that Las Vegas will have to draw and stay drawing out of the gate while trying to steal fans from the southern California area, not to mention convince fans in southern Nevada that they can be a big draw in an area where there is much to do. Of course, Utah is pretty much up for grabs, so that could be something for Las Vegas to look at as far as attracting new fans. There's many ways that Las Vegas can go for making its brand of hockey marketable both immediately and ten years from now. It will be the ten years from now that will be more telling, as the Atlanta Thrashers found out.