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LAS VEGAS -- Before the Los Angeles Kings final home preseason game in Las Vegas earlier this month, Luc Robitaille, the president of business operations for the Kings, presented Bill Foley, the majority owner of Las Vegas NHL franchise, with a silver hockey stick. It was a ceremonial passing of the torch from the team that had been Las Vegas adopted hockey team to the team that next season will become Las Vegas first major professional sports franchise.The Kings had a lot to do with developing interest in hockey in Las Vegas, Foley said. Theyve been playing preseason games here for years. Its great for us. Were coming in here a couple of steps ahead.Not only have the Kings been playing preseason hockey games in Las Vegas since 1991, but the Anschutz Entertainment Group, the company that owns the Kings, has been trying to build an arena in Las Vegas, which it always believed could house an NHL team, for the past decade. AEG was able to partner with MGM Resorts International a little more than two years ago to build the T-Mobile Arena on the Las Vegas Strip, just behind the New York-New York and Monte Carlo hotels. The arena, which opened in April, was a big reason the NHL awarded Las Vegas and Foley an expansion franchise two months later.We always felt an arena would be successful here, said Dan Beckerman, AEG president and CEO and alternate governor of the Kings. The fact that the arena was coming out of the ground made it real for everyone. And for the prospects of Bill Foley and his group, having the arena as a reality made the process of getting a team a lot smoother.As a company with a 50 percent ownership interest in T-Mobile Arena, the addition of an NHL team as an anchor tenant was always a hope for AEG, but as the owners of the Kings, the larger goal was also to bring in a new hockey team to the West Coast, create a rivalry and ease the travel burden for the Kings.When the Kings were part of the NHLs major expansion in 1967, they joined the league along with the California Seals in Oakland (and four other teams). After the Seals left town in 1976, the Kings were left as the only team west of Minnesota and south of the Canadian border for much of the next 15 years until the San Jose Sharks, Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and Phoenix Coyotes eventually joined them.When the Las Vegas team starts play for the 2017-18 season, the Kings will not only get a new Pacific Division rival, but they will get much-needed road games that are just a 55-minute flight from Los Angeles. Thats not to mention a road crowd that will likely be pro-Kings initially, with a fan base that has been cultivated over the past 25 years and Kings home and away games still shown locally in Las Vegas on Fox Sports West.Bob Miller, who has been the play-by-play announcer of the Kings since 1973, still vividly remembers having to give the weather report before a game for the first time in his career on Sept. 27, 1991, when the Kings played the New York Rangers in an outdoor game at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Not only was it the first NHL game in the city, but it was also the first outdoor game between two NHL teams, which would become an annual tradition 17 years later.I remember the day of the game, they put a tarp over the ice to keep the direct rays of the sun off and it was held up by ropes but when they took it down, they dropped it down on the ice and the ropes were hot and melted into the ice, Miller said. They were all these ridges in the ice and at 1:30 I looked out of my room at Caesars Palace and I thought, Theres no way were playing tonight.Millers broadcast partner, Jim Fox, who played right wing for the Kings from 1980 to 1990, wanted to take a closer look at the ice, which was littered with grasshoppers.Someone working on the ice asked me to strap on a pair of skates and go see how it was, and at that point it was unplayable, Fox said. There were gauges where the tarp had fallen and melted the ice. It was up and down. So they worked on it and somehow made it work. It wasnt the best ice but it was playable by the time the game started.It wouldnt be the last time the Kings encountered a bad playing surface in Las Vegas. In 1998, the Kings and Colorado Avalanche played at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, and the score at the end of regulation was 2-2. With the ice in bad shape, the officials asked the coaches if they wanted to decide the preseason game with a shootout. So seven years before the NHL adopted the shootout, Las Vegas got a taste of what would be in the NHLs future.I was confused, I didnt know what they were doing, Miller said. I thought they had awarded Colorado a penalty shot, but the referee said the ice was so bad that they didnt want to take a chance with an overtime, so they went to the coaches and asked them if they wanted a shootout. They said sure and it went 10 rounds and Sandy Moger won the game for the Kings with a goal on Patrick Roy. A writer called the NHL the next day and asked them, When did you go to a shootout? They said, We didnt and he said, Well, you did last night in Vegas.After the Kings first game at Caesars Palace in 1991, they didnt return to Las Vegas until 1995, when they again played the Rangers, this time at Thomas & Mack Center at UNLV. The success of both games prompted the Kings to host annual preseason games in Las Vegas dubbed Frozen Fury. The annual tradition began in 1997 at MGM Grand and ended earlier this month with the first NHL game at the new T-Mobile Arena between the Kings and the Dallas Stars. While the Kings will return to Las Vegas next season, they will do so for the first time as the road team.If we wouldnt have played here all these years, I dont think there would be a team here, Robitaille said. People saw the attention we got and that hockey got year after year, and thats one of the main reasons they were able to get a team here. AEG stepping up and building the arena here was a big key, but I think it had everything to do with us playing here for so long. It was important for us to establish the league and establish market here. Now we pass the torch and look forward to a new rivalry.Air Jordan Outlet . Catch all the action on TSN2 at 11pm et/8pm pt. The nine-time Big 12 champion Jayhawks are positioning themselves for another title, as they have run out to a flawless 6-0 mark in conference play thus far. Air Jordan China . The 18th player to shoot 60 on the tour, Jamieson settled for par on the final hole when his 15-foot birdie chip grazed the edge of the hole and stayed out. After opening with rounds of 66 and 73 to make the cut by a stroke, he had 11 birdies in the bogey-free round. https://www.jordanchina.us/ . Already owning gold from competition in Vancouver in 2010, Loch posted a combined four-run time of 3:27.526. That included a track-record third run of 51. Cheap Jordan From China . -- Charlie Graham stopped 67 shots as the Belleville Bulls edged the visiting Guelph Storm 6-5 on Saturday in Ontario Hockey League action. Jordan China .35 million, one-year contract that avoided salary arbitration. Plouffe batted .254 with 14 home runs and 52 RBIs in 477 at-bats last season, his second as a regular in the lineup.ATLANTA -- Connor Manning threw for two touchdowns and ran for a third as Georgia State beat Georgia Southern, 30-24 on Saturday.It was only the third meeting all-time in the Sun Belt Conference rivalry. Georgia State began playing football in 2010. The win snaps a three-game losing streak by Georgia State and comes a week after coach Trent Miles was fired, replaced by quarterbacks/receivers coach Tim Lappano.The loss is the sixth in the last seven games for Georgia Southern.Glenn Smithh ran 29 yards for a touchdown, Manning ran in from a yard out two minutes later, then fired 28 yards to Robert Davis to give Georgia State a 20-0 lead in the first quarter.ddddddddddddThe Eagles battled back to trail 20-17 at halftime.Manning answered with 15-yard strike to Smith and Brandon Wright tacked on a 27-yard field goal to put the game out of reach. ' ' '