Las Vegas
The league will expand to Las Vegas for the 2017-18 season after awarding its 31st franchise to billionaire businessman Bill Foley on Wednesday. Commissioner Gary Bettman announced the decision after the league’s board of governors met on a 109-degree day and unanimously voted to put an ice hockey team in the Mojave Desert’s gambling mecca.
“We think this is a tremendously exciting opportunity, not just for Las Vegas, but for the league as well,” Bettman said, calling Las Vegas “a vibrant, growing, global destination city.”
Foley will pay $500 million to the NHL’s other owners as an expansion fee. The new team will play in T-Mobile Arena, the $375 million building that opened just off the Las Vegas Strip in April.
The NHL is expanding for the first time since 2000, when Minnesota and Columbus each paid $80 million to join the league.
With nearly 2.2 million people in the last census, Las Vegas is the largest population center in the U.S. without a team in the major professional sports. Vegas was an economic boomtown in the previous decade, and the NHL is betting that its slowed growth hasn’t curbed the city’s appetite for sports and spectacles.
The new franchise will be stocked by an expansion draft that will be more favorable than previous drafts, theoretically allowing the Vegas franchise to become competitive more quickly. They’ll play in the Pacific Division, the home of the league’s three California teams and the Arizona Coyotes.
Bettman also announced that an expansion bid from Quebec City was “deferred.”
While Bettman strongly praised the bid’s preparations and the city’s devotion to hockey, concerns about the small market, the Canadian dollar’s fluctuation and the league’s resulting geographical imbalance prompted the governors to go with Las Vegas alone.
Las Vegas
The Chicago Blackhawks’ NHL scoring champion received three trophies at the league’s annual postseason awards show from the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. He won the Ted Lindsay Award after his fellow players recognized him as the game’s most outstanding player, and he also accepted the Art Ross Trophy in recognition of his 106-point season.
Kane was the runaway winner of the Hart, getting 121 of the 150 first-place votes. Sidney Crosby finished second with 11 first-place votes, while Dallas’ Jamie Benn was third.
Braden Holtby of Washington finished fourth, but won the Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s top goalie. His coach, Barry Trotz, won the Jack Adams Award for the first time in 17 seasons behind an NHL bench, recognizing the Capitals’ impressive Presidents’ Trophy season.
Los Angeles Kings captain Anze Kopitar took home the Selke Trophy as the NHL’s best defensive forward and the Lady Byng Trophy for his gentlemanly play.
Kopitar’s teammate, Drew Doughty, won his first Norris Trophy as the NHL’s top defenseman, beating out Ottawa’s Erik Karlsson and San Jose’s Brent Burns.
Chicago forward Artemi Panarin won the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s top rookie. The 24-year-old Russian beat out No. 1 draft pick Connor McDavid of Edmonton, whose debut was shortened by a broken collarbone.
Jaromir Jagr, the Florida Panthers’ 44-year-old leading scorer, was awarded the Bill Masterton Trophy for perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey.
Glendale, Ariz.
Arizona acquired Goligoski’s negotiating rights in a trade with Dallas last week and brought him out for a visit.
The 30-year-old Goligoski has been a steady defensemen in eight NHL seasons with Pittsburgh and Dallas.
Golfer Rory McIlroy became one of the most high-profile sports stars to opt out of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics because of concerns about the Zika virus, saying Wednesday it is “a risk I am unwilling to take.”
“After speaking with those closest to me, I’ve come to realize that my health and my family’s health comes before anything else,” the four-time major winner said in a statement released by his management company.
The 27-year-old McIlroy said this month that he and his fiancee, Erica Stoll, may consider starting a family “in the next couple of years.”
Zika is a mosquito-borne virus which has been linked to severe birth defects and possible neurological problems in adults.
The fourth-ranked McIlroy was scheduled to play for Ireland as golf makes its return to the Olympics for the first time since 1904.
Marc Leishman of Australia and Charl Schwartzel of South Africa are golfers to have already pulled out of the Olympic tournament specifically because of Zika.
American cyclist Tejay van Garderen is another athlete to cite Zika as the reason behind not going to Rio. Basketball star Stephen Curry has dropped out of the games, not specifically citing Zika but noting that “other factors” played a role in the decision.
Indianapolis
While the deal cannot be announced officially, Hill’s agent, Bill Neff, confirmed the details.
Atlanta receives the No. 12 overall pick in tonight’s draft.