VEGAS WINS OVER FANS
What happens in Vegas can’t possibly stay there any longer. Since the expansion NHL franchise’s emotional season debut just nine days following the tragic mass murder of 58 people at a country music festival on the Strip, all the way to the Stanley Cup final, this has been the season to end all seasons. In fact, unless they lose the Cup, is there really any reason to play another season? There is simply no topping what this team has accomplished in Year 1.
We kid, of course, but this team of castoffs has captured the hearts and minds of hockey fans from coast to coast across the U.S. and Canada.
Hockey fans were naturally curious about the expansion team. We always are — as we watch them stumble to new records of futility. This team would be no different, right? Wrong. They were different from the get-go. That amazing home opener, where the team paid tribute to the first responders and medical personnel who had just been through hell.
And that hell was still so fresh and raw as they were introduced to the appreciative crowd.
Then there was defenceman Deryk Engelland, clearly a man of immense character, actually speaking to the crowd prior to the game.
The proud, longtime Las Vegas resident vowed his team would help their community get through its common nightmare.
And how! Piling up wins early in the season, hockey experts waited for them to crash and burn on their first big road trip. They didn’t.
Sure, the Golden Knights had blips but at the end of the season, they were Pacific Division champs with a stunning 107 points.
Impossible. No way they would make the playoffs, we’d said. Wrong. Not only did they make the playoffs, they cruised through them.
Reducing their bruising California rivals in L.A. and San Jose to rubble in nine games before hanging tough against Winnipeg and winning that series 4-1 despite furious pressure from the Jets. Fan favourite Marc-andre Fleury, all smiles behind that cage as he robbed NHL snipers over and over again. ‘Wild Bill’ William Karlsson, Tomas Nosek, Reilly Smith, Jonathan Marchessault, Alex Tuch, Nate Schmidt and others making names for themselves on a nightly basis.
And that opening, with drums, knights, swords, lights and flaming arrows firing up the crowd. And friggin’ catapults! It’s cheesier than the Kraft factory but hockey fans are lapping it up. And that’s why it can’t stay in Vegas.
The bar really has been raised, NHL teams. Let’s see what you’ve got!