For their inaugural TV broadcast tandem, the Vegas Golden Knights tabbed a play-by-play announcer whose NHL tenure began in the same year of the league’s last two expansion teams.
In the 17-season interim since the Minnesota Wild and Columbus Blue Jackets debuted, two full-length American presidencies, plus a few months of two others, have elapsed. Conversely, the NHL has seen one change in its collective continental makeup. That would be 2011’s uprooting of the Atlanta Thrashers from the southern U.S. in favor of Winnipeg.
As it happens, in Vegas, Dave Goucher will be complemented with the color commentary of Shane Hnidy, who spent the last six years filling the same role for those Winnipeg Jets.
Goucher, a native New Englander previously employed by the Boston Bruins radio partner, was humorously humble in a statement on his Twitter account this past week. After relaying the rationale behind his hunger for more TV work, he concluded, “I’d like to thank the Golden Knights for the incredible faith they’ve shown in me.”
This is coming from a broadcast veteran who just left the comfort of home and the security of America’s longest-tenured NHL franchise. This is coming from someone whose only prior experience outside of New England, much less any other time-honored hockey market, came in two Double-A seasons in West Virginia.
And suddenly, after a subsequent 22-year run with AHL Providence and NHL Boston, he will work for the first team in Las Vegas’ chronicle as a major-league sports market. (Goucher acknowledged that fact in his statement as well.)
Although, as of yet, “attempted major-league market” may still be the cautious, operative turn of phrase. The Golden Knights are Vegas’ delayed gratification after at least 13 years of failed attempts to nab a new or relocated MLB, NBA or NFL franchise.
Being of America’s decidedly fourth-rate sport, they have an inherently taller task building traction. Add the fact that they are just north of the state border of Arizona, where the Coyotes can never seem to shake off a sense of long-term uncertainty.
The Coyotes, otherwise known as the old Winnipeg Jets, have mustered two-plus decades in the desert. The region will need to prove it can sustain two NHL brands for Hnidy to justify his own transfer out of Manitoba, his native province.
But it would be one matter alone if the broadcasters and players had all come to Nevada from the same prior location. Instead, they are convening from all directions, as the Golden Knights snap the NHL’s longest expansion gap in the last half-century.
Shane Hnidy played for the Atlanta Thrashers, the last expansion franchise to take root in a Southern market before the Vegas Golden Knights. He was more recently a commentator for the Atlanta franchise in its new home, Winnipeg. (Photo by: Scott Cunningham/Getty Images)
The NHL rigidly remained a 30-team circuit during the 17-year stretch between the Columbus/Minnesota class and the Vegas inception. The so-called “Golden Era” of 1942 to 1967, during which the Original Six stood alone, is the only longer period with no changes to the number of franchises.
A majority of living people have no memory of that time. Those who do understand all of the pros and cons that have stemmed from modern expansion, for they have seen it all before their eyes.
Regardless of age, it is little wonder skeptics are fretting that the 31st team will mark the point where the scale gives out and spews its screws.
If that happens, the consequences would likely fall on a party near the problem’s point of origin. That means Vegas or Arizona, who may ultimately be competing for a dearth of thirsty fans in the Southwest.
Even if overexpansion does not give way to contraction, which would cost players and broadcasters alike their NHL jobs, more moves are a risk. It is worth remembering that the Thrashers rose in the Southeast two years after the Carolina Hurricanes came down there from Hartford. They commenced operation in 1999, immediately following the Nashville Predators and preceding the Wild and Blue Jackets.
There were several other unfavorable variables in Atlanta. It did not help that the Thrashers played but four postseason games, losing them all in 2007. Come what may, they retreated to Canada after 12 years.
Yet Hnidy has pulled a reverse relocation on that to service the new fans in Nevada. Goucher is pulling a Whaler by leaving New England for a warmer climate whose only prior hockey history is comprised of short-lived minor-league teams.
Both men are seasoned and accomplished enough that they would have little trouble finding new employment if the ice should somehow melt on NHL Team No. 31. With that said, their assets will be a crucial means of fetching fans and fostering an interest that goes beyond casual.
A hockey franchise cannot live out in the long run on predominantly casual rooters. The fish must bring the bite of a piranha.
By taking their rods to the new pond at T-Mobile Arena, Goucher and Hnidy are trusting they will find that fervor.
When and if Goucher wins the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award, his time in Vegas could one day be an “Oh, yeah!” flicker on his Hall of Fame resume. But he would not take the job if he foresaw that outcome. He and Hnidy clearly have faith in this foundation, and the Golden Knights should exceed each of their thanks for that.
Leave a Reply