By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
While the Vegas Golden Knights take a mini-road trip to Anaheim to play the Ducks Friday, T-Mobile Arena still plans to keep the hockey rink ready for action because a four-team tourney called the Ice Vegas Invitational is taking over the Big Ice House on the Strip.
The marketing game plan is simple, said Invitational promoter Brooks Downing, of Lexington, KY-based bd Global.
Downing is working with T-Mobile Arena to show the NCAA that the venue that is owned by MGM Resorts International, Los Angeles-based AEG and VGK owner Bill Foley can host a Frozen Four — college hockey’s version of the Final Four.
Downing said several hundred thousand dollars — nearing $500,000 — are budgeted to stage the Friday and Saturday contests, with games starting 5 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. each night.
Downing, a former University of Kentucky sports information director, said Las Vegas Events originally wanted to back the college hockey tourney but didn’t come through with the sponsorship dollars. So, he partnered with T-Mobile Arena to stage the two-day hockey event, which has to be out of the arena Saturday night to make way for Sunday’s 1 p.m. Golden Knights-New Jersey Devils game.
Downing said this is the second year of a tournament that will also return in 2020 to Las Vegas and he hopes to show that T-Mobile Arena can host a Frozen Four, which is being held in NHL arenas in Buffalo (2019), Detroit (2020), Pittsburgh (2021) and Boston (2022). So, the next possible year for a Frozen Four contending host town is 2023. Downing said it’s up to Las Vegas Events and/or Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority to lead the charge in vying for the Frozen Four as host cities for championship events for four years — 2023 through 2026 — will be up for grabs.
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This year’s four teams are UConn and Western Michigan, which play Friday 5 p.m., and St. Lawrence and Air Force, which play Friday 8:30 p.m. The championship and consolation games are Saturday. The tournament is covering the four teams’ lodging and food. Three of the four teams are staying at Park MGM across the street from the arena.
Last year, the four teams were Arizona State, Northern Michigan, Michigan Tech and Boston Tech.
Attendance for the inaugural event was about 2,500 per game last year and Downing expects ticket sales to be around the same numbers for the 2019 version.
The Golden Knights are going to chip in with in-game production and content work to help juice up the games, Downing said. He noted he wants the college hockey tourney to help build the hockey culture in Las Vegas and said the 3,000 youths playing hockey in the city are already part of that.
Downing said he works on 150 college basketball games a year in brokered deals and holiday tournaments, and would like to see the hockey invitational blossom into a major NCAA event with Las Vegas growing as a hockey town.
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