The NHL’s deputy commissioner refuted a report about the league expanding to Las Vegas. (Bruce Bennett, Getty Images)
Bill Daly, the NHL’s deputy commissioner, told The Post’s Adrian Dater on Tuesday night that there is no truth to earlier reports of the league expanding to Las Vegas or other cities yet. Expansion seems inevitable for the league in the near future, but no plans are imminent.
The (Vancouver) Province’s morning that NHL commissioner Gary Bettman had “changed his tune” on expansion plans and that it was no longer a question of “if” but “when” — and whether the league would limit the number of expansion teams to just two:
Sources close to the situation have indicated Las Vegas is a done deal, the only thing to be determined being which owner will be entitled to proclaim that he brought the first major league sports franchise to Sin City. …
A new team close to the newly renamed Arizona squad and California’s big three is all but assured, the only question being when and with which other city. Or should that be plural?
Howard Bloom of Sportsbusinessnews.com also reported that four teams would be added in the next three years:
NHL expansion – four teams added by 2017, Quebec City, Toronto, Seattle, and Las Vegas $1.4b in expansion fees
— Howard Bloom (@SportsBizNews)
//
////
Daly, in a text to Dater, reiterated what : There are no expansion plans. The reports are not true.
“It’s not in our plans,” Daly told TVA. “There’s absolutely nothing new on that.”
