Roundhill Brings Hockey to Wall Street with Latest ETF Filing

From time to time, issuers of exchange traded funds are known to play copycat and that’s happening in the race to launch funds tethered to indexes measuring the performance of NHL teams.

Just days after Volatility Shares filed plans to introduce funds that will essentially be baskets of CME-traded derivatives based on FutureSports Performance Indexes (FSPI), Roundhill Investments unveiled similar plans.

Like its first-moving competitor, Roundhill filed plans with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to introduce ETFs representing all 32 NHL franchises that will hold CME-listed futures tied to the FSPIs.

When FutureSports announced plans for its benchmarks on college and professional athletes and teams last month, it noted the gauges use “officially reported, league-approved statistical outcomes.”

If the SEC approves the products, the offerings from Roundhill and Volatility Shares will likely function in a similar fashion. However, Roundhill’s filing includes proposed tickers: an “X” combined with a three-letter team identifier.

For example, the Roundhill Vegas Golden Knights ETF would trade under the ticker “XVGK.”

Roundhill Known to Bettors, PM Traders

Recognized for pushing the envelope in thematic ETF segments, Roundhill is familiar in betting circles as the issuer behind the Roundhill Sports Betting & iGaming ETF (NYSE: BETZ)—the first fund to focus exclusively on iGaming and sports wagering equities.

The asset manager was also the first to initiate plans for ETFs that would hold baskets of political event contracts traded on prediction markets. Two competitors quickly followed, but the SEC—citing the need to evaluate “novel” pitches—has yet to approve any of the dozens of proposed political contract ETFs.

Interestingly, the political ETFs no longer appear in the “Coming Soon” section of the Roundhill website nor have the proposed NHL funds made their way there as of yet.

That doesn’t necessarily mean much aside from the fact that the SEC is taking its time on the election-based ETFs and that Roundhill’s NHL fund filing is new, which it is.

Timing Issues

The puck drops on the 2026-27 NHL season on Sept. 29, and related activity is already surfacing on prediction markets. However, the season’s start date is unlikely to rush the SEC’s timeline.

Although the funds aren’t yet live, some ETF experts are joking that two families of hockey ETFs are too much of a good thing. Others are wondering how the funds, if approved, will behave during the offseason when it’s likely futures activity will significantly drop.