Heisman-winning quarterback Tebow brings professional hockey to Lake Tahoe

Professional hockey is coming to the Sierra Nevada region for the first time. The ECHL announced July 10 an expansion team would come to Lake Tahoe and is set to join the league for the 2024-25 season. The team will be the 29th member of the league and the westernmost franchise. Tahoe will play its games in the 4,200-seat Tahoe Blue Event Center in Stateline, Nevada. "The ECHL proudly welcomes the 29th Member Team to the League in the brand-new Tahoe Blue Event Center, expanding our geography in the western part of the continent, and creating natural rivalries for visiting fans with the Idaho Steelheads, Utah Grizzlies, and the entire Mountain Division," ECHL Commissioner Ryan Crelin said in a statement July 10. Lake Tahoe will not be alone in joining the ECHL, formerly known as the East Coast Hockey League, in 2024. An unnamed team in Athens, Georgia, is set to begin play at the same time, and the league hopes to eventually get to 32 franchises to match the National Hockey League and American Hockey League. A familiar face to sports fans is bringing professional hockey to the Sierra, as 2007 Heisman Trophy winner and former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow will be a majority owner of the team with David Hodges, CEO of Hodges Management Group LLC. This isn't the first partnership between Tebow and the ECHL. Tebow is involved as a minority owner of the Jacksonville Icemen and Savannah Ghost Pirates, but the Tahoe team to be named is his first as a majority owner. Hodges is a partner in the Savannah franchise as well. "I love that sports can bring people together from all over to enjoy camaraderie, competition and community impact," Tebow said. "I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be part of a group bringing hockey to the Tahoe area for fans and families to create memories for years to come." "It is an honor and a privilege to steward this new franchise for the community," Hodges said. "Tim and I are excited to be able to share this new team with the community. We look forward to engaging the fans as we name the team, design the logos and eventually drop the puck in October of 2024." "Tim is a very passionate guy about uniting communities, and when the opportunity came up, he really wanted to get involved," said president of Zawyer Sports & Entertainment Bob Ohrablo, the group that will manage and operating the team. "Tim and David are the majority owners of the team, and then they've hired us to run the team for them." Ohrablo is eager for the opportunity presented to his group, as it marks the first time professional hockey will have a permanent home in the area. "Tahoe is such a winter sports wonderland, and it just seemed natural that pro hockey would be part of that," Ohrablo said. "We are going to be a regional team that serves the whole Tahoe area and will draw from Sacramento, Carson City, Reno, the whole area." Ohrablo wants the community and its surrounding areas to be connected with the team from the start. Fans can have a say in the team name by submitting suggestions to laketahoeprohockey.com. The contest will run through Aug. 5. "This team belongs to the community in place here; we just manage it," Ohrablo said. "We're asking people to come up with their favorite name that best describes the entire area and what's important to the entire area." Ohrablo, who also manages Savannah, mentioned the name-the-team contest was very successful and played a hand in it being the top-selling ECHL team in terms of merchandise last year. He hopes for the same type of success in Tahoe. "We were very successful in Savannah when the Ghost Pirates name was suggested, and we had over 3,000 entries there," Ohrablo sid. "We just passed 1,000 entries right now in Lake Tahoe as well. So we're just curious to see what some of these names are gonna be like and excited to see what comes up." The team is entertaining offers from four NHL clubs that don't have an ECHL affiliate, as well as offers from teams that are looking for a new partner in the league. "We've had teams reach out to us since Monday's announcement," Ohrablo said. "Our company is known for operating a really solid team and taking good care of players, which is what the NHL teams care about. Obviously, our goal in any city we're in is to make the playoffs and the cup, so we're hoping that whoever we partner with will provide us with some solid players to make that happen." Ohrablo added he anticipates an NHL affiliate will be announced in February or March 2024. While the announcement marks the beginning of a new era for hockey in the Lake Tahoe area, it's not the start of the region's hockey history. One of the greatest moments in United States hockey history happened in the region, when the men's hockey team won the gold medal at the 1960 Olympic Games at Squaw Valley, now called Olympic Valley. The Americans won all seven games in the tournament, defeating favorites Canada, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union and Sweden. The gold medal run is often called the "mini-Miracle" or "Forgotten Miracle" in reference to the "Miracle on Ice" 20 years later. In 2021, the NHL played two outdoor games on a rink set up on the 18th fairway at Edgewood Tahoe Resort in the NHL Outdoors at Lake Tahoe. The event was considered a success, and Ohrablo said it was a factor that inspired bringing a team to the area. "We obviously saw the beauty of the area with those games, and when we realized there was going to be a rink up in Tahoe, we decided to take a look into things," Ohrablo said. "We believe hockey's gonna be very successful there, and just the initial reaction since our announcement on Monday, I think we're right. People really like their hockey and are excited about this." The team anticipates sellout crowds won't be hard to come by at the Tahoe Blue Event Center, and Ohrablo says he sees no reason why they couldn't sell out all 36 home games in their inaugural season. "We plan to partner with almost all of the casinos and hotels in Tahoe for packages and tickets for guests," Ohrablo said. "Our schedule is going to be more like a baseball schedule where we'll play three games and four nights at home, so fans can come up and make a weekend out of it." The Tahoe Blue Event Center is scheduled to open this month and will be the host of a variety of entertainment events outside of professional hockey.