The news sports fans in Seattle have waited a long time to hear. Beginning in the 2021-22 NHL season the 32nd team will enter the fray from Seattle. After the city broke the record for fastest time to sell seasons tickets prior to the teams arrival the news came today that There will be an expansion team in Seattle. They also said that the yet to be named team will be slotted in the Pacific division, and the Arizona Coyotes will move to the Central division giving all 4 divisions 8 teams. The original hope was for the team to start in the 2020-21 season, but it was pushed back a year to allow for the completed renovations to Seattle Central Arena (formerly KeyArena) and subsequent training facilities.
The Seattle ownership group is lead by private equity CEO, David Bonderman. Bonderman will be paying a $650 expansion fee, which is $150 more than Bill Foley paid for the Vegas Golden Knights. The newly revamped Seattle Central Arena will have an approximate capacity of 17,400, and is expected to be ready well before the new NHL team will take to the ice. The expansion draft will take place there as well with the league keeping the same rules as they did for Vegas, with the exception that the Golden Knights are exempt from giving up any players in the new expansion draft. The board is also excited to have a nearby potential rival in the Vancouver Canucks giving both cities a division road team that’s a reasonable drive away.
The city first submitted an application to the NHL in Manalapan Florida last year. After which they started a season ticket deposit drive on March 1st and secured 10,000 deposits in 12 seconds. Within the first 31 hours they had secured 32,000 deposits with a 10,000 name wait list which shattered and NHL record.
You can read about it more in the original article on the official NHL website.
