Vegas Golden Knights become official

Foley was already the chairman of the board for Black Knight Financial Services and the lead investor in Black Knight Sports & Entertainment, the consortium he started along with the Maloof family, which owns the team.

Owner Bill Foley told ESPN a few hours before the official announcement, “We now have an identity”.

The team announced their name and logo on Tuesday night in a ceremony in Vegas.

“We selected “Knights” because knights are the defenders of the realm and protect those who can not defend themselves”, Foley said in a press release. “They are the elite warrior class”. On top of the name of a franchise, a logo is a visual representation that communities can get behind.

Foley has said the team did not want to include an overt gambling reference in the name, but also considered Desert Knights and Silver Knights. Okay, okay, I get just one joke.

“Golden Knights”, however, is bad.

Recchi, curiously, is now on the Pittsburgh Penguins’ payroll as a player development coach. He’s smart, he has great values and has done an fantastic job in a short period of time.

There are still many reasons to be skeptical of Las Vegas as an National Hockey League site, but the biggest question remains this: with so much uncertainty around the bottom end of its 30 markets, why add a 31st? “I think it would be a great tool for anyone – fans, [general managers], anyone”, Taylor said.

Bringing in this Las Vegas team should be treated as a test case to see if the league in its current state is ready to expand into other markets.

Forming the Golden Knights has been a passion project for Foley for the better part of the last three years. TSN put together a mock expansion draft by predicting who each team will protect, and then letting former Flames GM Craig Button pick his roster from the unprotected players.

The Golden Knights immediately began selling team merchandise at the announcement. His alma mater, the U.S. Military Academy, has sports teams called the Black Knights.

“I do listen to what the fans are saying. But I believe we’ll do the same thing with the names we’re coming down to”. The colors are black with a gold outline, as Foley had long preferred. Fans chanted his name Tuesday but jeered Bettman every time he spoke-and Bettman spoke more often than planned, because the video didn’t work until the third try. Foley hired McPhee to be the team’s first general manager in July. The franchise has not hired a coach. The second piece of the name, “Knights”, was chosen to represent what the team will stand for – valor, courage and victory.