As announced in June of last year, the American Hockey League (AHL) will be expanding the league to 32 teams ahead of the 2021 season.

The expansion team is set to serve as the affiliate for the coming NHL team in Seattle and will be based out of Palm Springs, California.

While the newest AHL team has yet to be named, it has officially been announced that the team will be playing its home games out of a brand new, 10,000 seat stadium being built in downtown Palm Springs.

The stadium is set to begin construction in February of 2020, and will be having an open to the public, “official groundbreaking” on February 18th.

NHL Seattle General Manager Ron Francis, who was just recently in Palm Springs ahead of the announcement, commented on his time in the city and the excitement surrounding the new AHL team;

"I came in Friday night and I've basically been a walking billboard with the logo on my shirt everywhere I've gone, and I've had a lot of people comment and talk to me about it, and there generally seems to be some excitement, and that's great to see when you're walking around the community.

The big thing is once people see the groundbreaking and start seeing some tangible things, the excitement level will kick up even another notch."

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