NHL Changes Major Event Location For Next Season

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Tyler Ball
November 16, 2023 (11:01 PM)

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The NHL has a few major events each season. The All-Star game, NHL Awards, Winter Classic, and the NHL Draft. Today we got news that one of these events is looking for a new location.

NHL Changing Major Event Location

Today an NHL insider confirmed that the league is looking at a new location for the upcoming 2024 NHL Draft. The draft is still likely to be held in Las Vegas but the venue is still in question.

The location that is being talked about is the new Sphere in Las Vegas. This, however, doesn't have the proper space to house teams within the facility. This means the draft would need to be decentralized to make the venue work. Decentralization is of course coming but was expected first in 2025.

«The issue, the only open issue, is whether we have it as early as 2024 or whether we push it to 2025,» NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said Thursday ahead of the Global Series. «I think our objective is to have a 2024 Draft that looks a lot like our traditional Draft and transition in 2025. But we don't have enough premonition to say that's what's going to happen.»

With this in mind the Sphere will likely not end up being the location and a more traditional arena draft is more likely on the table. This could mean that Vegas uses T-Mobile Arena or a new city altogether could hold host to the biggest NHL event of the summer.

NHL Moving Toward A New Draft Experience

In the same conversation NHL comissioner Gary Bettman spoke about what the new NHL Draft experience will look like once things are decentralized.

«The event in either format is still going to be a major event,» commissioner Gary Bettman said. «There's still going to be fans invited, the players, the prospects will be there with their families. The only difference will be whether the clubs will be on the floor as opposed to being at home, where they can do their own fan events and they can have more access to all their personnel in real-time.

The change to a new format does not come out of a necessity for change says Bettman. He says the change came organically from the NHL clubs bringing up their needs during the draft.

«We were very comfortable and still are with the format we've been using. It's different than any [other league] uses. We kind of liked that this was an organic proposal that a number of clubs suggested � and we're not going to fight it. We'll take a poll of the clubs and if an overwhelming majority want to make a change, we'll implement their will.»

NHL fans particularly ones who love the draft have been skeptical of these changes. Whether they happen this season or next the NHL will have a lot of people to keep happy who enjoy how the process is now.