LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – Since the arrival of the Golden Knights and the subsequent Stanley Cup Championship, there is no question hockey has been the fastest growing sport in Las Vegas. Now, the organization is looking to expand the sport within the valley, creating the Vegas Golden Knights High School Hockey League.
“It’s definitely something people are clamoring for,” said America First Center Director of Coaching and Instructor Programming, Brian Salcido. “I compare it the next biggest thing to girls’ hockey. Girls’ hockey has a lot of room for development and growth, but certainly now in this age group of high school players, I think there is a big group of people looking to get on the ice, and that’s because of the growth we’ve gone through.”
The announcement was made this past February and is the first of its kind pooling high school players to represent the areas in which they live.
“The bubble or bell curve has always been that big push of nine, ten, eleven, twelve, well now they’re starting to get to that high school age,” explained America First Center Hockey Director, Nate Putek. “Recognizing between Faith Lutheran, Bishop Gorman, travel teams, we’re going to have more kids than will outweigh what we can offer them. The next step is that valley wide thing, other than two schools. This is a big step that way, more kids can play, community based, the schools, the neighbors involved with one another.”
In this inaugural iteration of the league, it will be co-ed with players whose birth years range from 2008-2011. The teams will be represented by eight different areas including: Centennial/North Las Vegas, Summerlin, Summerlin South, Spring Valley/Durango, Enterprise/Athem, Paradise/Green Valley, North Henderson/Black Mountain, and Southeast Henderson/Foothills.
“There are areas that aren’t represented by name, but we’ll take some of those small, pocketed areas and add them to those anchored areas,” said Putek. “We created those anchor areas and unique jerseys.”
“It’s about playing with your friends, opportunity to play with your neighbors,” said America First Center Director of Facility and Operations, Wally Lacroix. “Throughout the valley you have house league, travel league, or other programs, this is where you get to play with your neighbors. The skill level will be varied at the beginning, but as it grows, the more you skate the better you get, you can play for your house league team, high school, team, lot more opportunities to get players on the ice.”
Each area will feature a major and minor team, which will be determined by skill level with 20 players on each team. Each team will get five practices and play 15 sixty-minute games.
“I’ve already started talking to my kids about it and it’s amazing to me how they’re already starting to mimic the 4 Nations tournament,” smiled Putek. ”‘I get to play with so and so.’ It’s just the excitement behind it and the fact they’re actively involved with it. Between that and scratching the itch of the number of players we have on the ice this was kind of a no brainer to where we’re going.”
Organizers tell FOX5 this project has been a labor of love with the long-term view to eventually get each individual high school represented.
“The absolute goal is to get all of Nevada involved, the absolute goal is we go to Reno and get them involved, said Lacroix. ”They have several high schools, and they would play regular season games against each other and then once or twice Vegas goes to Reno, Reno goes to Vegas and that’s the long-term goal to get everybody involved.”
“If you were to look at the pyramid of when players start playing, this is a gap that will put them on their path wherever, it can really pump people up for option that is very valuable,” said Salcido. ”Other models we’ve seen, I don’t see why it can’t grow here and expand into Utah and Arizona in non-hockey markets. I think people will like it and has potential to grow into something really cool.”
“We really want people to understand this is the future, this is something we’re looking at in the long run,” said Lacroix. “It needs to start somewhere and today is when we’re starting this; for all those players playing they can look back ten years from now, we played in that first league, they started this league, and the goal is to get as many schools as we can.”
The season will start in April and run through July. Registration is open and you must also be a member of USA Hockey.
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