'Everybody is all in:' Why the NHL continually commits to Las Vegas Sphere hosts NHL Draft this week in latest of long line of league events held locally The National Hockey League's Las Vegas dream began on September 27, 1991, in the parking lot of Caesars Palace. On that 85-degree evening, Wayne Gretzky and the Los Angeles Kings beat the New York Rangers 5-2 in an exhibition in front of 13,000 fans. It was hailed as a landmark event at the time, but few if any realized it would be the first of many in the same vicinity.
Thirty-three years later, Las Vegas has become a prime location for the NHL's premier events — staging several firsts, and now, potentially a last. The NHL's latest takeover of Las Vegas happens this week, headlined on Friday and Saturday by the league's 2024 Entry Draft which will become the first sports-related and live-televised event in the history of Sphere. It also might be the NHL's final centralized draft.
The league will no longer throw a draft event and require franchises to send representatives to one city starting next year, as officials will make their picks from their own team headquarters. The NHL didn't have to think too hard about where to hold the de facto send-off event. It was back to Las Vegas, where the league has repeatedly put on its biggest shows over the last 15 years.
Even before the milestone of bringing the city its first major professional sports franchise in 2017, the Vegas Golden Knights, the NHL held its awards show locally.