Viva LAS VEGAS

If Sin City can prove it has a viable fan base, Bettman & NHL will listen

VANCOUVER — They could be called the Blackjacks, the Roulettes, or maybe even the Sinners. If the NHL makes Las Vegas its next expansion city — or expanSin City — the conversation will began about what to call hockey’s 31st franchise. Perhaps the team would be named by polling local fans.

After all, that’s exactly the process that prospective Vegas franchise owner Bill Foley is using — with the permission of NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and the league’s Board of Governors — to determine whether a sufficient local fan base exists to support a team in the tourist-heavy, desert destination.

Foley, the chairman of $4 billion mortgage giant Fidelity Na- tiona l Financial, received per mission from Bettman to conduct a seasonticket drive in Vegas “to measure the level of interest,” as the commissioner explained on Monday at the Board’s winter meetings in Boca Raton, Fla.

Bettman pleaded for the media to take “a deep breath” and approach this update with “a level of precision,” since there is no NHL expansion process even underway. But just the idea of considering a professional sports venture in Vegas is intriguing.

“There is no formal expansion process. There is no vote that was taken today. There is no vote that was contemplated. We don’t have an agreement to sell anybody an expansion franchise,” Bettman said. “However, the interest that we are getting from Las Vegas has raised lots of questions about the market itself and the interest level in supporting a professional team in Las Vegas.”

Now, to abide by Bettman’s plea for a balanced approach to the topic, the truth of the situation is that the commissioner’s update on Monday does not make Vegas the league’s most likely expansion destination.

An enormous turnout in the season-ticket drive might only draw Vegas even as a viable expansion option with cities such as Seattle or Quebec City, where such proof that a fan base exists is “not necessary,” in Bettman’s words.

On the other hand, Foley told ESPN this week that he doesn’t “care what it takes,” he intends to bring an NHL franchise to Sin City. His Las Vegas-based partners are the family, the former owners of the Palms Casino and former owners of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings.

There is also reportedly a lease agreement nearing completion with the builders of the $350 million Las Vegas A rena, which is scheduled to open in May 2016. Its builders include MGM Resorts International and AEG, which owns the Los A ngeles Kings.

Both Vegas and Seattle furthermore have the advantage of being in the West. The NHL currently has 16 teams in its Eastern Conference and 14 in the West, and no one expects the league to create further imbalance.

Expan-

sion may not be on the Board’s voting agenda yet, but Bettman estimated the league’s salary cap ceiling should rise from $69 million to approximately $73 million next season, and expansion franchises would only increase the lucrative pot for existing owners.

Expanding to Vegas is tempting, just like the city itself, but Foley is doing well to gauge the landscape before diving i n head-first. The King, for one, likes the idea of all cards being on the table.

“Vegas is a t own where it’s all about shows,” Henrik Lun

dqvist, an impeccable salesman of the league, said Friday in Vancouver, “and I think a lot of people would go there and say, ‘Yeah, why not go to a hockey

game and take a look?’ But will you have a strong enough fan base for a team? I don’t know. That’s probably my big gest question.

“Because if they can find that out, they can probably make a cool event every time it’s a game. They’d put on a good show, I think. As long as they have fans. You want to play for an organization that has fans.”

You can see it now, can’t you? The Rangers arrive and check into the New York-New York Hotel & Casino. A King Henrik billboard lights up above the strip.

Yet, if Rangers jerseys dominate the Las Vegas Arena stands that night, a franchise can’t last.

CLASSY GOODBYE FOR A CLASS ACT

The past week’s services for Canadiens legend Jean Be

liveau, who died on Dec. 2 at 83, marked the perfect sendoff for a beloved member of the Montreal and hockey communities. From Tuesday night’s moment of silence at Montreal’s Bell Centre, to Wednesday’s beautiful yet heartbreaking funeral services at the city’s Mary, Queen of the World Cathedral, Beliveau was honored appropriately and awesomely as the icon and friend he had been to so many.

“Oh captain, my captain, bon voyage,” former teammate Yvan

Cournoyer said, concluding an emotional eulogy.

Hockey has never found it so difficult to say goodbye.