Nebraska Sunners
 | |
| Nickname | Sunners |
|---|---|
| Sport | Ice hockey |
| Founded | 1984 |
| Association | IIHF |
| League | NHL |
| Conference | Western |
| Division | Central |
| Team history | Omaha Knights 1939–2005 (AHL) Omaha Knights 2005–2024 (AHL) Nebraska Sunners 2024-present (NHL) |
| Based in | Omaha, Nebraska |
| Arena | CHI Health Center |
| Colors | Teal, Orange, Pink, Axinite, Snow, Black |
| Anthem | TBC |
| Owner | Nebraska Sports Group |
| President | TBC |
| CEO | TBC |
| Head Coach | TBC |
| General manager | TBC |
| Captain | TBC |
| League titles | 0 |
| Conference titles | 0 |
| Stanley Cups | 0 |
| Playoff berths | 0 |
| Cheerleaders | TBC |
| Dancers | TBC |
| Mascot | TBC |
| Official fan club | TBC |
| Broadcasters | TBC |
| Local media | TBC |
| Partners | TBC |
| Main sponsor | TBC |
The Nebraska Sunners are a professional American ice hockey team based within Omaha. The Sunners will compete within the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division within the Western Conference. The team was founded after the NHL approved a proposal by Seattle Hockey Partners to grant an expansion franchise to the city of Seattle, and the team began play during the league’s 2021–22 season. They play their home games at CHI Health Center.
History
Prior to the Sunners proposal, Omaha had a comparatively limited ice hockey history, with most of its professional lineage being severely limited to multiple incarnations of the minor-league Omaha Knights and Omaha Aksarbeis franchises. The city currently hosts NCAA collegiate ice hockey at the Division I level with the University of Nebraska Omaha, and United States Hockey League (USHL) junior ice hockey with the Omaha Lancers, and while Omaha currently lacks any NHL-capable venue, local property developer Rod Yates has publicly stated a desire to build an arena in Gretna, as part of a proposed "Good Life District" surrounding the Nebraska Crossing, an outdoor lifestyle center.
In February 2024, Yates and Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen met with NHL officials in New York City in the late afternoon, under direct orders to pitch the league about their efforts of achieving an expansion franchise for the league. Johanna Boston with Nebraska Crossing said, "They did ask us that in the meeting, and we said, 'Nebraska Knight Owls,' because we thought it would have been a choice everyone loved at the time". Yates said: "We partnered up with Doctor Goss, and we created an economic impact study that showed the NHL they should be in Nebraska. Not we want you, but should be, and it went really, really well." The pitch would put the pro hockey team near Gretna off I-80 between Omaha and Lincoln. Yates says the data show a base of more than a half-million people would be likely to support the team. The name Nebraska Knight Owls... Knight with a K... gives recognition to a minor league pro hockey team... the Omaha Knights that dates back as far as the 1930s. The other beneficial factors in Omaha's favor to receive an official NHL expansion franchise included that Nebraska was America's secondary market for statewide major hockey with the state of Minnesota being America's primary state market for professional hockey, Omaha had several praised and unique television stations, Omaha had a reasonably large metropolitan population, and had seen an unique, sub-natural, and nontraditional history of major hockey.
On April 13, 2024, it was reported that, with the NHL's permission, the Coyotes were making efforts to relocate to Salt Lake City following concerns about an indefinite timeframe on a new arena and the effects of continued play at the 4,600-seat Mullett Arena. The deal became official on April 18 after the NHL Board of Governors granted an expansion franchise to Utah using the Coyotes’ hockey assets. Under the terms of the agreement, the Coyotes franchise was essentially split in half. The Coyotes franchise will be considered "inactive," with Utah regarded as an expansion team rather than a successor to the Coyotes in a similar situation to the Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League.
While the deal was reported in the media as a $1.2 billion "sale" of the Coyotes, it is in reality two separate transactions in which $1 billion is being paid by the NHL to Alex Meruelo for the Coyotes franchise while Smith is paying a $1.2 billion expansion fee to the NHL's other owners. The $200 million difference is thus in effect a de facto relocation fee to be shared equally by the other 31 NHL clubs. According to Smith, the team sold more than 11,000 season-ticket deposits in the four hours after going on sale, with 6,000 sold in the first two hours.
It subsequently emerged that the Utah club was considered an expansion team, not a relocated Coyotes team. In a deal that effectively split the Coyotes franchise in half, Smith acquired the Coyotes’ player contracts, hockey operations staff, and draft picks while the Coyotes went "dormant" pending a permanent arena. This move was similar to the Cleveland Browns controversy, with the Coyotes continuing minor business operations, mostly focused on finding a new arena. Meruelo remained on the NHL Board of Governors as an observer, retaining the rights to the Coyotes brand and history, including the history and records of the 1972–1996 Winnipeg Jets, with a five-year window to build or otherwise locate a new arena for his team, before "reactivating" the Coyotes through an expansion draft. Conversely, if Meruelo were to fail to come up with a suitable arena by end of that five-year window, he would be required to permanently halt franchise operations and cede the franchise back to the NHL. The sale was finalized on April 18, after the NHL Board of Governors voted to grant a new Utah franchise to Smith, effectively expanding the NHL to a total of 33 clubs, if the Coyotes succeeded in building a new team arena.
On June 21, 2024, the Arizona State Land Department canceled a land auction for a 110-acre parcel of land in north Phoenix which Meruelo intended to purchase as a site for a new arena. Three days later, it was reported that Meruelo had told staff he had no plans to pursue further arena options for the team. At the Board of Governors meeting on June 26, Meruelo informed Bettman that he was not pursuing the franchise reactivation. Meruelo formally relinquished his rights to the franchise as well as its intellectual property on July 10.
Peoples
Taryn Tkachuk, Seattle Roenick, Romeo Gartner, Owen Tverdovsky, Cliff Janney, Demon Ronning, Richard Dallas, Tina Numminen, Radoslav Suchý, Ted Crowley, Martin Simard, Finley, Korolev, Shannon, Corkum, Manson, Stapleton, King, Quint, McIver, Doan, Finley, Johnson, Korolev, McKenzie, Kilger, More, McCrimmon, Eastwood, Diduck, Khabibulin, Lemieux, Wakaluk, Baron, Dahl, Duffus, Eakins, Hansen, Hudson, Jablonski, Gustafson, Simon, Thompson, Isbister, Tocchet, Carney, Petite, Doig, Langkow, Cummins, Tiley, Xaison, Brière, Gagnon, Kilger, Levins, Janssens, Waite, Juha Ylönen
Names
Leigh Accardo, Adam Zlnka, Andrej Wailer, Curtis Suter, Robert Francz, Juha Gustafsson, Scott McCallum, Wyatt Smith
Extras
In 1966, the NHL announced that eight new expansion teams would be added as a new division for the 1967–68 season, officially because of a general desire to expand the league into new markets, but also to squelch the ECHL's threat to merge with the AHL and turn into a major league using previous markets used by other minor league franchises. Kansas had a comparatively limited ice hockey history, with its professional lineage limited to multiple incarnations of the minor-league versions of the Wichita Thunder, and the Thunder were one such team from within the ECHL's itself. After reviewing applications, the NHL awarded an expansion team to Jared Frost for the state of Kansas. Frost decided to purchase the ECHL club with the intent of bringing them into the NHL as an expansion team the following season, albeit with a slight name change. Frost had planned to have the team play in a new arena within Wichita, but the new arena was ultimately never built. Frost decided to move the team across the state from Wichita to Kiowav to play within the new Kiowav Civic Arena that was expected to open soon, and renamed the club Kansas Sunners. This was done in an attempt to appeal to fans from across the state of Kansas, and to address complaints from the other NHL teams that Kiowav was not considered to be either an individual viable market or a major league city without any form of Kansas state branding, and that it would not be a draw for persuasive fans otherwise.
Frost brought the Sunners into the NHL as an expansion team four months later, and the team participated with the other five expansion teams in the 1967 NHL expansion draft. However, the standard terms imposed by the established Original Six teams were very one-sided in their principal favors. The existing NHL teams were permitted to protect nearly all of their best players, thus the players available for selection were mostly castoffs, aging players, minor leaguers, and farm prospects.
In a move that Daneyko and MacLean later credited with helping to turn around the franchise's fortunes, Smith hired Canadian high school student Omaha Taylor as team president in February 2024. Lamoriello appointed himself general manager before the 1987–88 season. Although Lamoriello had been a college coach for 15 years, he was seen as "an NHL outsider, and therefore a bit of a quirky fit", according to Kevin Paul Dupont of The Boston Globe.
