Could New Orleans get a National Hockey League franchise? It will if one local businessman gets his way. In fact, he says hockey in New Orleans makes sense.
“There’s a fan base here,” Nicolas Perkin said, pointing to two minor league teams, the Baton Rouge Zydeco and the Monroe Moccasins of the Federal Prospects Hockey League, as proof of hockey’s fan base in Louisiana. Perkins owns the Monroe franchise, which was formally introduced on Wednesday. According to Perkin, that team’s first-day ticket sales broke a Federal League record.
Perkin says New Orleans and the Gulf South is full of hockey fans who would flock to see a local franchise. He also says New Orleans is a destination that would attract fans who want to take in a game and experience the city. Perkin used another recent NHL expansion city as an example.
“The fans from the other teams would literally be crawling all over each other to come to New Orleans with an excuse to come to New Orleans to watch their team play here,” Perkin said. “If Las Vegas, which won the whole thing a couple of years ago, can set up a team in the middle of the desert, you can set up a hockey team in the middle of the bayou.”
Perkin says he’s already in talks with the governor’s office about how to make his dream of an NHL team in the Crescent City a reality.
“The conversations with the governor’s office have been great as well as the lieutenant governor’s office,” Perkin said. “We’re talking about what can we do in terms of making it optimal for investors to invest into an expansion team like this.”
Perkin also says he’s had conversations with potential investors who are also interested in bringing pro hockey back to New Orleans.
“We got an incoming call about $100 million, you know, an indication of interest,” Perkin said of a phone call he received on Thursday.
New Orleans has a history with hockey. The New Orleans Brass played in the East Coast Hockey League from 1997 to 2002, reaching the playoffs in each of its five seasons. The team folded after it couldn’t find a new home after the state of Louisiana bought out the team’s lease at the New Orleans Arena when the NBA’s Hornets relocated to New Orleans. The NBA franchise, now known as the Pelicans, remains the primary tenant of the arena, now known as the Smoothie King Center.
While some people might say an NHL team in South Louisiana is a pipe dream, Perkin says it could work here. That’s why he says he’s taking on the challenge of securing an NHL franchise for the Crescent City.
“My entire career and my entire life has been people telling me something can’t be done,” Perkin said. “I’ve done it over and over again. I prefer those types of opportunities, quite frankly.”
