Could hockey be coming to Houston?

HOUSTON, Texas -- Houston is the 4th largest city in the United States and is home to some amazing professional sports teams. The Astros, Rockets, Texans and Dynamo have drawn fans in from all over the South Texas area for years.

But there is something missing; an NHL team of course.

Sure the city has had two iterations of the Houston Aero's in 70s and again in the 90s until 2013 when they relocated to Iowa.

Houston has had success with minor league hockey throughout the years, but has never fielded an NHL team.

There was an attempt to bring the Edmonton Oilers to Houston in the 90s. Former Rockets owner Leslie Alexander was in talks to purchase the Canadian hockey team and relocate them to Houston. The deal almost went through, but a grassroots bid by a local businessman in Edmonton prevented the sale, and insured the Oilers would remain in Canada. He also bid on an expansion team but came up short there, too.

After this failure, Alexander never pursued an NHL team again and the city of Houston had little to no hope that a National Hockey League team would ever come to Houston. That is until Tilman Fertitta stepped into the picture.

In 2017, Fertitta purchased the Rockets for an astounding $2.3 billion, a record for an NBA team at the time. With this purchase also came the ownership of the Toyota Center, and it wasn't long before he stated he was interested in having more than just the Rockets play in his newly acquired arena.

The video above is from a 2017 interview with Fertitta on his desire to bring the NHL to Houston.

For the rest of this story, visit our partners at Houston Sportsmap.