Arizona Coyotes president and co-owner Anthony LeBlanc and his partners had just bought the team a few years ago when they were having a dinner with the Coyotes coaching staff.
During the dinner, then-goalie coach Sean Burke mentioned the play of a local kid in Arizona who had absolutely blown him away. It’s the first time LeBlanc remembers hearing the name Auston Matthews.
“[Burke] is telling me about this kid who plays at the IceDen, and obviously he’s talking about Auston,” LeBlanc said. “He said, ‘He’s the best player I’ve ever seen in my life.’ ... After that, I started hearing more and more buzz about him.”
Matthews, as you might have heard, didn’t end up with the Coyotes. And on some level, it seemed like a huge opportunity lost for the Coyotes.
Matthews had a great hockey backstory that began with a trip to a Coyotes game. He had two involved parents in the area. He already had a fan base there. It was just about the perfect scenario. Instead, he went to Toronto.
Then a funny thing happened. Matthews scored four goals in his NHL debut and the impact on ticket sales was immediate. Not on the Maple Leafs, a team that doesn’t have any issue finding fans. In Arizona.
LeBlanc noticed that Matthews was trending locally on social media, something that doesn’t typically happen in that market for hockey players on other teams.
Then, the Coyotes noticed the ticket sales.
“Our single-ticket sales that night, we had a spike. Just for Coyotes games,” LeBlanc said. “People were like, 'Holy crap, this is a really exciting sport.' There was a huge, huge spike in interest.”
That’s the power of a local star.
LeBlanc tells this story as an example of the payoff that comes when a local NHL team invests in youth hockey.
Las Vegas will become the 31st NHL team next season, and there will be an immediate buzz for the Golden Knights when they arrive. They have the built-in advantage of being the first major professional sports franchise in town. Locals will naturally gravitate to that.
But, in talking to executives who have gone through this process before in nontraditional hockey markets, the key to long-term success is to immediately focus on building the youth hockey program in Nevada.
“We did that in L.A.,” said Wayne Gretzky, who has helped build fan bases in California as a player and Arizona as a coach. “We had a really good group of guys like Luc [Robitaille] and Marty McSorley and Kelly Hrudey, Tony Granato -- guys that understood that L.A. was a different place, and we had to do different things. Youth hockey becomes imperative.”
“It’s very, very important,” agreed Robitaille. “If they can build two or three rinks, it’d be great. I know they’re building a practice facility too. If they can grow the base, it’s great. I think Mr. Foley understands that too.”
The Coyotes are benefiting from Matthews, and they’ve also benefited from the youth efforts of another nontraditional market.
Their talented 18-year-old defenseman Jakob Chychrun is a native of Boca Raton, Florida. His first memories of skating are sessions on the ice with Panthers mascot Stanley C. Panther. As he got older, he graduated from the mascot to skating with players.
His dad was a former NHL player, so he was probably going to be interested in the sport anyway, but he doesn’t discount the investment made by the Panthers.
“That was the biggest reason why I got into it,” Chychrun said. “When I was younger, I would watch [Panthers games] so intensely. I loved going to the games ... going to games and watching hockey is the best way to really get into it and fall into the sport. That’s the biggest reason why I have passion for it today.”
Now, when the Coyotes ask Chychrun to skate with kids in Arizona, he can’t wait to do it. He appreciated the time given by players in Florida or alumni like Ray Sheppard, and is now doing it for kids in the desert.
“I can relate to them being in a southern market and trying to play hockey,” Chychrun said. “I always look forward to opportunities like that.”
Gretzky credited the late Ed Snider for providing the plan for Los Angeles and now Las Vegas on how to grow hockey in a new market, with Snider’s approach with the Flyers decades ago.
“Ed Snider was probably the first guy who had that blueprint when he did it in Philadelphia in ’67, ’68, ’69 when people said hockey is not going to work in Philadelphia,” Gretzky said. “They really went into the neighborhoods and really got youth hockey up and going.”
The benefit was more than just developing hockey fans in Philadelphia. Flyers GM Ron Hextall said Snider’s involvement as an owner helped form the identity. Perhaps that’s the biggest lesson for Vegas.
Identity usually comes from the top down, good or bad.
“What we reaped from the '70s and Ed Snider is an identity,” Hextall said. “When you look at the teams in the league, that’s special. I always say, you have the Original Six who clearly have an identity. After that, you start looking, how many teams have a real identity? That’s special. I think it’s because of everything he did.”
He did it by investing in hockey locally. He put structure in place and he was demanding.
Under Snider expectations were high. They remain high in Philadelphia.
“But he also treated people very well,” Hextall said. “If you put a demanding system in place from your general manager to your coach to your players -- Mr. Snider expected a lot from us, that’s no secret -- that’s a good thing. You should expect a lot. You hire good people and you let them do their jobs. But you also demand a lot from them. That’s how you become successful.”