Ice, ice, maybe? NHL reportedly met with group interested in bringing team to New Orleans
New Orleans is already home to the NFL’s Saints and the NBA’s Pelicans, and there’s now a group of people who are apparently interested in bringing an NHL team to the Crescent City.
Kevin Weekes of ESPN reported Wednesday that he had been informed by NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly and other sources that the league recently met with a group interested in bringing an expansion team to New Orleans. The reported meeting took place at the NHL’s league offices in New York.
Weekes didn’t reveal who was in the group that met with the NHL, or if they have connections to New Orleans.
While the meeting did take place, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has not publicly committed to the idea of expanding the league to 33 teams after bringing on the Las Vegas Knights and the Seattle Kraken within the past 10 years. A reported preference for the league gaining a 33rd team is a return to the Phoenix area, and bringing back the Coyotes’ intellectual and branding rights. A group of Phoenix government and business officials also met with Bettman about getting that process underway as well, Josh Erickson of Yardbarker reported. Phoenix still needs a new arena to make the return reportedly happen, however.
Houston and Atlanta are already in the process of building NHL-ready arenas. Cincinnati, Hamilton, Kansas City, Omaha, Quebec City and Saskatoon are also cities with interest in NHL expansion.
New Orleans once had an East Coast Hockey League team called the New Orleans Brass, a minor league team of sorts for the NHL. The team was briefly affiliated with the San Jose Sharks, and existed from 1997 to 2002. The Brass played in the Smoothie King Center, but were forced to fold when the city demanded them to prepare for the NBA’s Hornets to move to the city in 2002. The building held a capacity of 16,900 for hockey games.
The Baton Rouge Zydeco of the FPHL, another NHL minor league and down two levels from ECHL, is currently the only current professional hockey team in Louisiana. The Zydeco are currently in their second season.