NHL to Add 32nd Team

Seattle is getting the green light from the Board of Governors within the NHL to become the 32nd NHL franchise and will begin season play in 2021-2022. This great news for league that just added the 31st franchise in the Las Vegas Golden Knights to play their inaugural season just last year. This shows that professional hockey is growing in popularity and is now being demanded in markets that don’t currently have a team or franchise within the state that they can cheer for and support. The team will be owned by a group consisting of three members: David Bonderman, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Tod Leiweke. Billionaire businessman Bonderman and movie producer Bruckheimer will act as the majority owners for the team while Leiweke will act as the team President and CEO having worked in upper management of professional teams for over two decades. They are playing at the old SuperSonic’s home court KeyArena; however, it has been granted a $700 million renovation for the arena (will gut the whole thing but leave the roof) and will have a capacity to seat 17,400 for hockey and 18,600 for basketball. Seattle already has a great number of professional sports teams that encompass many of the different sports and professional levels within them. The lack of hockey, in an area that would make perfect sense to play hockey in, shows that this could become an even more successful expansion than the Golden Knights who drew record fans almost every game and made it all the way to the Stanley Cup Playoffs their first year.