Northern Nevada's newest professional sports team features veteran talent

RENO, Nev. (KOLO) - It is a little bit colder now on Lake Tahoe’s south shore as the Tahoe Blue Event Center ice is ready to go.

The new professional hockey team in town, the ECHL’s Tahoe Knight Monsters, are one week away from puck drop.

At Thursday’s practice pucks flew, glass rattled, and boards thumped. The minor league affiliate to the Vegas Golden Knights will need all the reps it can get in this inaugural season.

“It’s a longer training camp when you don’t play the first weekend of the season,” said forward Anthony Collins. “I think that gives our group more of an advantage. It’s more cohesion, more practice time together, and I think come (next) Thursday night when we’re shooting real bullets we’re going to be ready to go.”

Collins was the first player to sign with Tahoe.

He comes from the ECHL’s Savannah Ghost Pirates. There, he played for Alex Loh, the Knight Monsters first head coach.

“When Alex (Loh) reached out and we talked about the opportunity to come here for the first franchise I was super excited,” Collins said. “Obviously there’s familiarity with him and knowing what he expects, the systems he runs, and the day in, day out process he expects from us.”

Tahoe expects to play a brand of hockey fans in Nevada will recognize.

“We’re looking to play as fast as we can,” said Loh. “We’re going to emulate what Vegas does pretty closely so we’ll look to play a similar style to them.”

Players signed to contracts range from 24 years old to 35 which makes the TKM one of the ECHL’s most veteran groups.

“The rules as it works out are you can’t really go after younger players because their rights are owned by other organizations,” Loh explained of building his roster. “There’s no true free agents out of the ECHL for guys that haven’t played a lot so we really were targeting older guys and those older guys also help out the new team.”

Tahoe hosts the Jacksonville Icemen at 7 pm October 24.

Click here for tickets.