The city of Las Vegas got one step closer to that inaugural NHL game as workers finished the installation process for T-Mobile Arena’s ice surface on Saturday.
And there you have it: @TMobileArena officially has its first completed sheet of ice! pic.twitter.com/rU8PuHPY3K
— Vegas Golden Knights (@GoldenKnights) July 30, 2016
Workers started the process early Saturday by freezing the surface encircled by the fresh white boards. The line markings already in place along the boards, they were painted on the ice once it was frozen with the words ‘Las Vegas’ painted overtop of the NHL’s logo at centre ice.
The laying of the ice, which took several hours, is one of the final steps in preparing the arena for the first game it will host – an NHL preseason matchup between the Los Angeles Kings and Dallas Stars on October 7.
This will be the first NHL game at the new arena with the Kings taking on the Avalanche on October 8 as the last game at T-Mobile Arena, which opened on April 6, before the NHL’s latest expansion franchise takes to the ice in the fall of 2017-18.
With a general manager finally in place – that being George McPhee – the new franchise is hoping to have a name and logo in place prior to the upcoming season.
The arena which can hold up to 20,000 fans for Boxing, MMA and for certain concerts will have a capacity of 17,500 when NHL games take to Las Vegas’ new ice surface.
Andrew is in his 8th year reporting for The Hockey Writers covering the Toronto Maple Leafs. He began his broadcasting with CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada team as well as being part of their coverage of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi. He’s the former play-by-play voice of the London Jr. Knights for Rogers TV and currently hosts the Sticks in the 6ix podcast. You can follow him on Twitter at @AndrewGForbes.
