NHL, NFL, NBA in LV … who knows?

It'll be an icy week in Las Vegas. On Thursday, the NHL Awards come to town for the first time, at the Palms' Pearl. Tonight, hockey star Alex Ovechkin skates in front of Caesars Palace to promote the new "NHL 2K10" video game. He's on the box cover.

Palms owner George Maloof laughs off the remote possibility the NHL Awards could descend into near chaos, as did the 2007 NBA All-Star game, which led to shootings, 403 arrests, pot smoking in casinos and general nastiness.

"Let's see what happens," Maloof says, as calm and confident as ever.

Well, then, let's look at the brighter question:

Could the awards -- coming days after the Pittsburgh Penguins upset the Detroit Red Wings for the Stanley Cup -- lead to an NHL team getting stationed in Vegas?

Maloof, who has never laced up ice skates, says the obvious: Who knows?

"It's a great entree into Las Vegas," he says. "The teams can't wait to get here."

HOW ABOUT AN NFL TEAM?

Maloof, family co-owner of basketball's Sacramento Kings, isn't sure Vegas will get an NFL or NBA team.

The NFL is a long shot because of "the relationship the NFL has had with the city in the past."

Is that because the NFL hates us here in Vegas?

"Probably," Maloof jokes.

"The NBA -- I think it could happen," he says. "If something clicks, and somebody jumps on it, it could probably happen pretty quickly, but I don't think anything's planned right now."

I've never understood why an NBA team couldn't play alternately in the MGM Grand Garden arena and the Mandalay Bay Events Center.

As Maloof says, neither was built to be NBA-ready, and he declares the Thomas & Mack Center "isn't adequate."

"Speaking for the NBA, we don't have an NBA arena here in Las Vegas. We'd have to build one."

OK, well, why doesn't Maloof just build an arena, say, atop the Playboy Club?

"It'd be a little difficult, but I think it'd be a great idea. We could put it in the sky -- the Sky Arena."

PRO STARS' THOUGHTS

On Saturday, Hall of Fame quarterback Warren Moon took a few dozen NFL and NBA stars to Sunset Station for a bowling fundraiser for the Urban Youth Scholarship Program, benefiting smart and impoverished kids involved in community groups (including kids from Vegas).

Retired running back Eric Dickerson, who frequents Vegas often to golf ("I'm afraid of gambling"), laughs at the very idea of pro players living in Vegas:

"Come on, man! All this gambling out here!?

"The NFL is very conservative. They have this so-called 'image,' even though I think some of it is B.S. They would never have a Pro Bowl here. They would never have a Super Bowl here.

"You saw what happened with the NBA All-Star game. That was a fiasco."

Robert Horry, a gambler who bets in the "low five figures," says players from visiting teams might veer off game day schedules more than the home team would.

"You'd be trying to get that last roll (of the dice) in before the game," he says and laughs. "It would be a big bad influence. A lot of guys would go broke.

"Guys love to gamble, especially athletes. They think they're winners anyway, so they think they can never lose, so they're gonna go out and 'win.'"

Moon gives low odds, too.

"Even though sports betting is huge, if you had those teams right here in a hotbed of gambling, I don't know how that would fly," he says but adds: "I think it's getting close. I think the more lenient they get on betting, I think the more they'll be inclined to do something."

Actor Roger Cross, of "24" and "The L Word," (at the same charity event) jokes that NFL players could head to the sidelines for blackjack.

"While you're playing football, you just run over to the side and say 'hit me' -- and they WILL hit you."

BOWLING RESULTS

Moon won his bowling tourney. Junior Seau threw some rad gutter balls. Ed "Too Tall" Jones' fingers are so big, new holes had to be cut into a ball for him.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"Chicken ramen noodles, chicken ramen noodles, chicken ramen noodles, 12-pack lubricated condoms." -- Writer Davy Rothbart reciting a discovered receipt, during CineVegas. For more on that, read my blog.

E-mail delfman@reviewjournal.com. Comment at reviewjournal.com/elfman.