Venue News: Barclays Center To Welcome KHL; MLS Eyes Expansion in NYC

According to Kontinental Hockey League President Alexander Medvedev, Barclays Center, which will be the new home for the New Jersey Nets beginning in the 2012-13 season, will host KHL regular-season games and exhibitions, marking the first time the League has made an attempt to bring its product to North American ice. The New York Islanders have been discussed as a possible future hockey tenant for the Brooklyn arena, and are scheduled to play an exhibition game against the New Jersey Devils this October…

…Major League Soccer is a 19-team league looking to land a 20^th team in New York City. Last Thursday, MLS Don Commissioner Garber presided over his annual State of the League conference call with reporters two days before the start of the league’s 17th season. Although Garber could not, or would not, discuss potential ownership groups, the commissioner said that the league has been in discussions with city officials to try and locate a suitable site for a stadium in what Garber called the “urban core.” There has been talk of redeveloping the Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx or building at Aqueduct Race Track (where the State of New York recently proposed a huge convention center). Of late, talk of building on the West Side railyards, which had been a prospective site for the ill-fated Olympic bid, has re-emerged. All three of those locations have a key element Garber spoke of — access, or planned access, to mass transportation…

…The Philadelphia Eagles will install more than 11,000 solar panels (3 megawatts (MW) of generating capacity) and 14 micro wind turbines, which are expected to generate about six times the power used during all Eagles home games. The project, undertaken with the Eagles’ new major sponsor, New Jersey-based NRG, is expected to be complete in late December. Under the Eagles’ partnership with NRG, Lincoln Financial Field will feature solar panels along 11th Street and its south facade, and micro wind turbines along the top of the stadium on the north and south sides, and provide the majority of the power used by the field on an annual basis. The solar power system included in the deal, when complete, is expected to become both the largest in both the NFL and in the Philadelphia area…

…A key peg of the $391 million plan to build a downtown Sacramento sports and entertainment center is a promise that the city will find a suitable new use for the 184 acres surrounding Power Balance Pavilion, the current home of the Kings. The deal approved by the City Council last week calls for the city and Kings to sell the old arena site, likely in 2015, to help fund the downtown arena. But, like other elements of the complex deal, details have yet to be worked out. For three decades, the arena has stood as North Natomas’ most identifiable landmark and economic engine…