PHILADELPHIA — John Penhollow has some grandiose plans for the Vegas Golden Knights.

Not on the ice. Off of it.

The team’s president of business operations is interested in enlarging the team’s footprint digitally, keeping the team’s facilities current with an eye on the future and hopefully increasing an already strong dynamic of growing the sport within the community.

That’s a lot of heavy lifting, especially the idea of constructing a new practice facility and team headquarters big enough to possibly be a home for UNLV’s immensely successful ice hockey program and maybe attracting the Professional Women’s Hockey League with a Las Vegas franchise.

To that end, he is bringing back Rich Wang, Scott Kegley and Bryan Harper, all of who have worked with Penhollow when he was with the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings.

Wang will be the organization’s Chief Operating Officer overseeing the team’s ticketing, finance and business analytics operations. Kegley will be the Chief Digital Officer, overseeing digital marketing, creative, social and influencer marketing. Harper will serve as the Chief Marketing Officer and will oversee marketing, brand, entertainment and retail. They’ll all be working with Robert Foley, the team’s Chief Business Officer and son of team owner Bill Foley. 

So why put the band back together?

“Well, I can appreciate that that’s an observation but reality is these three are the best at what they do and what we need to really move forward,” Penhollow said in a phone interview while the Golden Knights were in Philadelphia Thursday to face the Flyers. “There are a few specific things and when I look across the landscape of all of those that do this type of work is pretty clear to me that if we could somehow convince them to leave their very good situations.

“You can get here and we can get moving on some of the stuff and I would say that the familiarity with each other is helpful because we all know how each other like to operate and then you can just jump right into the work, which is amazing.

“But if I if I was consulting on a project and someone told me the set of needs that a team would have I would say go get Scott Kegley go get Brian Harper and if you can go get Rich Wang.”

Together they will attempt to grow the VGK brand even bigger than it already is, which is pretty sizable. But they also want to make sure the team is able to compete in the future and make hockey bigger.

City National Arena is not even 10 years old. But when you look around the NHL, places like Utah, Anaheim, San Jose are building facilities that are enticing to players. And the longer Penhollow waits, the further behind the Golden Knights fall and that’s not acceptable to owner Bill Foley.

“Yeah, I think the biggest piece to think about is no matter what the idea is these things take multiple years to build,” he said. “
So even when all the factors lineup perfectly — land, the financials all of the concept — it might be a 2-1/2-year idea, maybe 3-year idea so you have to start thinking about that.

“So let’s pretend we start tomorrow shoveling the ground. That means CNA might be 13, 14 years old at that point. So no matter why, you have to upgrade your facilities over the course of time. You just have to.”

Penhollow has studied the planning and construction that went into building City National Arena, which was considered state-of-the-art when it became operational in 2017. But nothing in Las Vegas lasts forever and CNA is no exception.

“We’re not alone in offices that have to think about that we have an NHL operation that when the building was designed, it was very quickly get it put up get the team in there,” he said, recalling the initial timeline. “If you were if you to start from scratch right now, you would build a different set of elements for the hockey team. Different medical spaces. Different nutritional spaces. If your wellness space is different physical, lifting and training, you would put all that in, which would look a lot different than what we have now.

“So forget the age of it. Just a team starting right now would put different things in it to address the athletes of today. These facilities matter, we’re all competing for the best talent both on and off the ice so that that’s like the business front end version of that answer.”

Would a new facility include a big enough capacity for UNLV should it go NCAA Division I and perhaps be big enough to lure the PWHL into putting a franchise in Las Vegas?

“Well, I would say for UNLV it would be an honor to work with them,” he said. “Of course they’re great partners right now. It’s an amazing fan base. They show up. They’re loud. It’s awesome. It’s absolutely awesome. What they’re doing on the ice It’s really fun.

“The PWHL side, it’s a little different. The league owns the franchises so right now, we can’t own a team. But if the PWHL comes to town to play a game during the year, two games in the year, they need to practice somewhere. They need to train when they come into town and if we could be a partner like that, that would also be an honor if we could somehow help with that, it helps with our youth programs to see players that both boys and girls can look up to. Of course we can sign up for that but you have to have facilities.”

Penhollow said he has noticed the bond between the Golden Knights and the Southern Nevada community so there’s something tangible to work with and build on going forward.
 
“I would say that from a fan perspective I’ve been very impressed with how supportive the fans have been now they’ve also had great teams to cheer for out about it, but I think it’s deep,” he said. “It really is deep. They show up at our events. They follow us on platforms. They’re wearing our gear. You go to any arena or any stadium, of course you’ll see the home team’s gear. But wow, you go to one of our games, everyone is wearing something. That’s really impressive.”

“I think it’s also impressive just to see the willingness of the fans to really go along with us on this journey. It’s not always perfect. But I think for the most part what I’ve seen is people are pretty understanding. I would say that on the business side the community supports the organization. They really do and I think even just my short time here the civic leaders have been great for when I meet them. They are like, ‘How can we help?’ They’re not roadblocks there.”

So as they look to do some heavy lifting, Penhollow will lean on his long-time colleagues and friends to get things done.

When asked what makes the threesome so good at what they do, Penhollow said: “It’s a combination of having the actual subject matter expertise but also how they do it. They collaborate the coach they develop it. There’s no ego involved. It’s ‘How do we have a job to do here? Who should be in the room to really have a real conversation to get work done and then move on what’s the next project?’ and that’s all it’s easier to say you know when you see people that have done it over the years and that all they care about is representing the organization.

“We have a lot of work to do and I know that that this group, they know the speed I like to operate and in the inclusion I like to have in meetings and coaching a developing and they stand out from the others that that could also put their name in the hat.”