Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Golden Knights partner to form youth hockey travel program

Youth Hockey Clinic at Toyota

L.E. Baskow

The Vegas Golden Knights Senior Vice President Murray Craven shows his hockey stick skills as they host a Youth Hockey Clinic at AutoNation Toyota with 100 elementary school-aged students from After School All-Stars on Tuesday, March 7, 2017.

The Golden Knights have been persistent in saying they will invest in youth hockey in Las Vegas.

Today, they took a major step in that endeavor, forming a partnership with the Nevada Storm youth hockey organization.

The partnership will form a new youth hockey travel program — the Vegas Junior Golden Knights. The program will initially feature teams from the mite level (8 and under) through midget (16 and under) and will utilize all three city rinks, including the Golden Knights practice facility, the Las Vegas Ice Center and the SoBe Ice Arena at the Fiesta Rancho.

“We have a long-term commitment to growing the sport of hockey in our community, especially at the youth level,” Vegas Golden Knights Senior Vice President Murray Craven said.

“The Nevada Storm organization has done an incredible job in the youth hockey space and we believe this strategic partnership will help take youth hockey in Southern Nevada to new heights in terms of participation, interest and quality,” Craven said. “We hope kids in Las Vegas will be proud to share the same Vegas Golden Knights name, colors and logos as our NHL players.”

With the partnership, all 11 of the existing Nevada Storm teams will be rebranded as the Vegas Junior Golden Knights.

“We are really excited to partner with the Vegas Golden Knights and the opportunity to take Nevada youth hockey to a whole new level,” said Las Vegas Ice Center owner and Nevada Storm founder Kirk Brooks.

A seven-member executive board will oversee the program, headed by Brad Sholl, who was recently named general manager of the Golden Knights practice facility.

Prior to joining the Golden Knights, Sholl was general manager of the Toyota Sports Center in Los Angeles from 2001 to 2016. The center is the training center of the Los Angeles Kings and Los Angeles Lakers. There, he helped develop learn-to-skate programs, the Lil Kings Program, and the LA Jr. Kings AAA program, where he served on the executive board of directors.

Try-out dates for the upcoming season, as well as a complete list of coaches and teams, will be announced in the coming weeks.

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