Youth hockey in Las Vegas will get an assist from NHL

Las Vegas Ice Center • 9295 W. Flamingo Road, Suite 130, Las Vegas • 702-320-7777 • Youth hockey programs range from skate classes to high-level travel teams

If the Los Angeles Kings and Dallas Stars need a scouting report of the ice at T-Mobile Arena before their preseason game next Saturday, they’ll need to seek out local youth hockey players.

Members of the Las Vegas Storm are the only ones who’ve played in the venue that will be home to an NHL expansion franchise starting next year. The franchise welcomed 100 players, from preschool to high school, for a skate- and shoot-around during a preview for season-ticket holders in August.

“All those kids had such a great experience, and the families got to have a vision of what their kids could look like on NHL ice in 10 to 15 years,” Storm coach Gabe Gauthier said. “I wish all of our kids got a chance to go out on that ice and skate it.”

It wouldn’t be a surprise if that happened someday. The opportunities for youth hockey players in the wake of Las Vegas landing a team have just begun.

Shortly after officially getting awarded the team this summer, owner Bill Foley said the most important community outreach would be creating a bond and growing the existing youth hockey scene.

“We’re going to create a really strong program,” Foley said. “That’s the way we build our fan base over years and years.”

There are only two rinks in Southern Nevada, including the Las Vegas Ice Center, where the Storm are based and Gauthier works as hockey director. Foley wants to double that total within three or four years, and contribute to the proliferation beyond that.

It will start with the team’s practice facility, under construction across from Downtown Summerlin. Foley wants the building to belong to the community as much as it does to the team.

“The NHL only practices on the ice for an hour, hour-and-a-half a day,” Foley said. “So, other than that, it’s going to be available.”

Gauthier has no doubt youth hockey can succeed here. The 32-year-old former professional player bases the opinion on his own experience growing up outside of Los Angeles.

He was part of a small group that played at the one rink available in the area. Gauthier left at age 13 to hone his hockey skills in Canada just as the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Mighty Ducks were building junior programs. He marveled at the progression every time he returned to his native Southern California, which now has more than 30 sheets of ice in place.

“For me, it’s like we’re flashing back 25 years,” Gauthier said. “It’s something that if it’s done right, with the passion that the people in Southern California had, it’s going to be on an upward move immediately and become successful.”

He said the process was further along than most realized. Since he arrived here from Denver two years ago, Gauthier has helped nearly double participation within the Storm program, with more than 400 children now enrolled in various levels of competition.

And the NHL announcement gave him an assist.

“We’ve already seen a small influx just from getting emails and inquiries from families saying they’re wanting to get their kids established in hockey,” Gauthier said. “There is definitely a big buzz.”

Gauthier met with officials from the NHL team shortly after taking his current position. They haven’t coordinated as much recently, with Foley’s staff taking care of everything that goes with the team’s impending first season. Gauthier has focused on sustaining what he’s helped build so far with knowledge that major-league help is on the way.

“If you have accessibility to those rinks, in due time, you’re going to build more and more young hockey players and fans of the game,” he said. “Kids are going to have their own role models to look up to and cheer for.”