from Cathal Kelly of the Globe and Mail,

Fewer than a quarter of Nevada residents were born in the state. It’s a transient place, and no spot within it is more transient than Vegas. Once you get off the Strip, it’s amongst the most depressing cities in the United States. It’s hot as hell most of the year.

Big one-offs aside, there’s nothing to suggest it’s suited as a sports town. There’s a great deal to suggest it isn’t a good hockey town.

All Vegas has is money, and that’s transient, too.

Given Nevada’s gambling connections, none of the Big Three leagues wants to go anywhere near the city. The NHL – which operates in the southwestern United States as though it’s a strip-mall purveyor of subprime mortgages – doesn’t have those scruples.

They have a product to sell. Las Vegas is willing to buy it on consignment. If it ends up rotting in some empty barn, well, that’s their problem.

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via Cam Cole of the Vancouver Sun,

If this Las Vegas/NHL effort ever actually makes it to the ice, the club could do worse than to be called the Gamblers. Pigeons probably wouldn’t fly.

Yes, sports leagues are all wary of actual gamblers getting their hooks into players and influencing results, but who’s kidding whom? Vegas is for gamblers and assorted messers-around, and the latter group doesn’t suggest anything in the way of a plausible team name. (The Las Vegas Johns? Cheetahs?)

Then again, considering the number of hockey players who are into it, maybe the team could be the Las Vegas PokerStars. You know, with Roberto Luongo in the .net.