LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Every once in a while, the Vegas Golden Knights reveal something big. The team is launching Las Vegas' first-ever high school-aged co-ed hockey league.
The Vegas Golden Knights High School Hockey League, or the 'VGK HSHL' for short, will offer an alternative to players whose main local options were the Faith Lutheran and Bishop Gorman club teams.
The league will begin with 16 teams in eight areas of the valley. Players from nearby schools will join forces to represent their section of the city. The VGK intends to eventually add teams that solely represent one school once the school has enough players to fill a 20-man roster.
Sign-ups are going on now. Player evaluations will happen in March and the puck will drop for league play in April.
Games will be held at City National Arena in Summerlin, America First Center in Henderson and the new Hylo Park in North Las Vegas.
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Sports reporter Nick Walters visited America First Center to meet with facility operations director Wally Lacroix, who has led the effort to bring the league to fruition.
"The idea behind high school hockey is to be like every other big city in every other state that does high school hockey," Lacroix said. "To have an opportunity to play for your school and represent your school just like you would be doing in football or baseball."
I think it's more pride than anything else. You get to play for your school. The student body goes and watches their team play, it just grows the sport even more. People see it and they're like, 'I want to do that too.'
While many kids in southern Nevada have picked up hockey, only a handful of high schools have enough qualified players to fill a roster. So, Lacroix and his team turned to proximity to make the league work.
"We decided we’d go by zip code," Lacroix said. We created a hot map, and by creating that map, we were able to join three or four schools and merge them together. Players will get to play for an area by now until they have enough players at their schools. Then, they can be called Green Valley Gators or Centennial Bulldogs one day. That’s the long-term goal.”
The Las Vegas youth hockey scene has grown quickly since the Golden Knights' arrival in 2017. Austin Moline knows that firsthand.
“There’s so many players I don’t think there’s honestly enough teams to get all these kids on," Moline said, a young defenseman in the Philadelphia Flyers organization.
Before becoming the first-ever Vegas native to be selected in an NHL Draft last year, Moline rose to the ranks of Las Vegas Storm youth hockey, the VGK youth hockey program and the Faith Lutheran club team. He eventually moved north to compete with some of the best of his age.
“Seeing how schools support their football team, now it’s going to be hockey, which will be really cool," Moline said. "Being in Minnesota the last few years, high school hockey is really big there. For fans and families, those games get pretty packed. Hopefully, eventually, Vegas will be like that.”
Gorman and Faith were the first two teams to do it, and it seems they’re doing a really good job. It kind of set the standard with how a program needs to be run through high school, so the teams that are going to be made should be followed by those two teams.
This high school league in the desert wouldn't have been possible without the Golden Knights' community impact. As more kids are inspired to pick up a stick and strap on their hockey pads, a popular concept in the northern part of the United States can work in the southwest.
“I think the Knights have shown that hockey is a popular sport in Nevada," Lacroix said. "Especially Las Vegas, but all of Nevada. Reno has hockey as well. Their numbers have exploded themselves up there. This is a great opportunity right now for everybody to jump on board because the Knights are a big deal here.”
Lacroix said the community has asked for this development for some time now. As more facilities open to open up more ice in town, it's time that supply has met demand.
“Signups are going really well and they go through mid-March," Lacroix said. "We’re going to have a YouTube channel so we’ll have a game of the week that people can watch if they can’t make it to one of the buildings. The statistics for all the young athletes so they can see what they’re doing and take pride on their teams and their areas.”
It's not the first time the effort has been made to bring consistent citywide high school hockey to Vegas. So, the VGK HSHL has some history to look back on.
“It’s a new idea for the Golden Knights and the city of Las Vegas but it has been done in the past with the Crystal Palace in the late ‘90s, early 2000s," Lacroix said. "We had high school hockey here in town and it was a huge success. We’re trying to emulate that model a little bit to start it and our goal is to be everywhere. All the schools.”
You can go to the City National Arena and America First Center websites to learn more and register.
