No clear end in sight for Atlanta hockey fans as NHL bids take another turn
The saga of the NHL’s possible return to metro Atlanta has taken another turn.
It’s a two-part update.
One, Vernon Krause, the head of the Forsyth County group that brimmed with confidence last summer that it was nearing the goal of an expansion franchise, has not had contact with the NHL in several months, league deputy commissioner Bill Daly told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an email.
Two, the league met this past week with the group from Alpharetta that also is seeking to bring the NHL back to the metro area, Daly said in the same email.
The competition to land Atlanta’s third NHL franchise, after two unsuccessful ventures, would appear to be tightening.
The lack of contact between Krause and the NHL is not the most encouraging development for the Forsyth group. Last June, Krause, a former Thrashers season-ticket holder and the owner of a car dealership chain, said, “I believe we’re going to have (a team)” and told the “100% Hockey” podcast that the goal was to have a team in place for the 2028-29 season.
Krause’s confidence stemmed in no small part from Forsyth’s approval of a $3 billion mixed-use project, called The Gathering at South Forsyth, that was to be anchored by an 18,500-seat “NHL-ready” arena. The proposed site’s developer is Krause Sports and Development, of which Krause is CEO.
But the break suggests that nothing is imminent and, further, that the bid’s future is uncertain.
“Work is ongoing behind the scenes, though unfortunately we’re not able to share any public updates yet,” a Krause spokesperson told the AJC in an email Monday.
What might have slowed Forsyth’s pace?
Shortly after the Forsyth announcement, news broke that the league informed its team owners that if the league expanded beyond its 32 teams, the franchise fees would be at least $2 billion — more than triple what a Seattle ownership group paid in 2018 and significantly more than the $1.2 billion a Utah ownership group paid to purchase the Arizona Coyotes in 2024.
And in September, Daly, the deputy commissioner, told ESPN that both Atlanta bids were “aspirational” and needed a plan that’s “a little more actionable than where we currently are.”
That surely was not what a group that pronounced itself “shovel-ready” was expecting. In a statement to the AJC in September, Krause said that “we are making excellent progress on delivering a fully actionable plan.”
And, for the past several months, no contact with the league from Krause. And, after stating in June that he hoped to hear “one way or the other” from the NHL about whether Forsyth would get a franchise that year, 2025 ended without those hopes met.
And alongside Forsyth’s uncertain status, Alpharetta is gaining momentum. The Alpharetta Sports and Entertainment Group, the face of which is former NHL player Anson Carter, has proposed building an arena at North Point Mall to attract an expansion franchise.
Wrote Daly of that group, “There seems to remain a high level of interest in continuing to pursue a franchise, but I am not sure there is much more I can offer in terms of how close (or far) they are from raising the necessary funds and making a bona fide proposal that we would have the ability to study and react to.”
Carter declined to comment to the AJC through a spokesperson at TNT, for which he is an analyst for its NHL broadcasts.
At least publicly, Alpharetta has not made as many concrete steps. For instance, there has been no application for rezoning for an arena to be built at North Point Mall. The city of Alpharetta commissioned a feasibility study on the viability of an arena on the mall site, but it has yet to be returned.
And so this is where metro Atlanta’s pursuit of the NHL stands in January 2026. One group appears further ahead with an unclear future. The other group is moving forward but has more ground to cover.
It leaves again the sense that no NHL pucks will be dropping around here anytime soon. For one thing, the league has yet to even declare plans to expand.
Maybe one of these two groups will be successful, maybe not. Maybe it’s a group that has yet to emerge.
There were three arena groups in the Seattle area that fell short before a fourth finally succeeded in winning an expansion franchise.
The NHL would very much like to be in Atlanta, the second largest TV market in the U.S. that doesn’t have a franchise (after Houston). Though the Flames and Thrashers’ days in Atlanta were ill-fated, league officials know that a franchise can succeed here. But the NHL is not in a hurry. Business is on the upswing, and there is no need for risk taking, especially in Atlanta.
It has been a long wait for Atlanta’s hockey diehards, many of them clustered in the northern suburbs near the two potential sites. It says here that it will happen eventually.
But when, and now where, continue to remain unclear.
About the Author
Ken Sugiura is a sports columnist at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Formerly the Georgia Tech beat reporter, Sugiura started at the AJC in 1998 and has covered a variety of beats, mostly within sports.
