The NHL in Las Vegas: Three Reasons Phoenix Isn’t Moving There

Jun 27, 2014; Philadelphia, PA, USA; NHL commissioner Gary Bettman addresses the crowd before the 2014 NHL Draft at Wells Fargo Center. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

On Tuesday evening, my Twitter exploded.

I blame Thomas Drance. He’s one of my favorite NHL reporters over at The Score- but then this happened.

"“Report: NHL Expansion Reportedly a Done Deal“"

According to columnist Tony Gallagher of the Vancouver Providence, the expansion of the NHL to Sin City was reportedly “already a done deal”. All the i’s had been dotted, all the t’s had been crossed, and it was only a matter of time before Gary Bettman became the first league commissioner to have a professional sports team in the Nevada hothouse.

This seems unlikely for a number of reasons. First, it doesn’t seem likely that any sports league would expand to LV; the prevalence of sports betting in the region is just too high for a team to risk it.

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Second (and this is where Arizona fans should be listening), it doesn’t seem likely that the league would add another team to the desert- particularly when cities like Seattle, Houston, Kansas City, and Quebec City still sit lacking a franchise.

All speculations about the likelihood aside, though, the rumor took off with a flying leap. Before the end of the night, Sports Illustrated had published an article saying that not only was Las Vegas getting a team, but Seattle and Quebec City would be joining them- in addition to Toronto receiving a second franchise- by 2017.

Naturally, these kinds of expansion rumors are always accompanied with relocation rumors. If I took a shot for every time I read someone tweet that “Arizona is most likely to move to Las Vegas”, I’d have been hospitalized by Wednesday afternoon. It’s insane.

While the rumor that Las Vegas is getting a franchise seems unlikely, though, I think that the rumor that Arizona would be the one to move there is even more insane. Here are three pretty valid reasons why-