Sharks to open 2nd round in Vegas.
The electric game atmosphere in Las Vegas is like nothing else in the NHL
SAN JOSE >> Sharks coach Pete DeBoer doesn’t buy into the “Vegas Flu” theory.
He knows why the Vegas Golden Knights won 29 home games this season, third-most in the NHL, and it has nothing to do with casinos, gambling, late nights on the Strip or any other diversion that can befall visiting teams.
“That’s crap,” DeBoer said. “It’s a tough environment, they’re a tough team and they play really well.”
When the Sharks open the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs Thursday night, they won’t just be dealing with the Golden Knights’ speed, depth and airtight goaltending.
They also will be dealing with the electric atmosphere at T-Mobile Arena, a festivallike experience that captures the glitz, revelry and vibrance of the home city.
DeBoer felt it before he got to the arena during one of the Sharks’ visits to Vegas this season.
“I made the mistake of walking from the hotel to the rink and I won’t make that mistake again,” DeBoer chuckled. “I went through a mob of a crowd that had probably started drinking four or five hours earlier and I took a lot of heckling.
“It was awesome.”
The Golden Knights opened their inaugural season Oct. 10, nine days after the mass shooting at the Mandalay Bay. That night, every Knights player took the ice accompanied by a first responder — police, doctors and nurses. That was followed by 58 seconds of silence, one for each of the people who died in the shooting.
The Golden Knights then went out and scored four goals in the first 10 minutes. The party was on, and it continues to rage. The Knights produced the greatest season ever by an expansion team, going 51-24-7 and winning the Pacific Division.
Vegas ranked 17th in home attendance, but it would have been near the top if T-Mobile sat more than 17,500. Even so, the Golden Knights averaged 18,042, playing to 103.9 percent of capacity, fourth-best in the league.
Team officials set out to capture the Vegas experience with their in-game entertainment and they’ve hit the jackpot.
It starts with the music. In between whistles, at least half of the crowd, maybe 70 percent, is on its feet dancing and singing. Instead of playing angsty-rock anthems by artists such as Metallica, Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters, standard fare in every other NHL arena, the Knights blast everything from hip hop to EDM to country music, filling the set list with sing-alongs such as “YMCA” and “Shout.”
They get people out of their seats by showing videos of Elaine from “Seinfeld,” Jim Carrey in “Dumb and Dumber,” and “Napoleon Dynamite” flashing their moves. Naturally, when the Golden Knights win, Elvis Presley’s “Viva Las Vegas” blares over the speakers. The rink also features a live DJ and an organist.
“They have great warmup music — the music’s loud. It’s not spa music like it is at SAP Center,” Sharks defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic said. “They turn (the music) up. They don’t want you to fall asleep, so they turn it up, which gets the fans going, gets the players going.”
The music is just the beginning of the NHL experience on the Strip.
The Blue Man Group performed during the Sharks first game in Vegas on Nov. 24. Cirque Du Soleil has done its thing at five games. One game featured a Michael Jackson dance-off, another started out with noted striptease act Magic Mike performing the national anthem. Luxor prop comedian, Carrot Top, provides tutorials on hockey’s rules and regulations on the Jumbotron.
Marriage proposals are hardly uncommon at sporting events, but the Golden Knights hosted an actual wedding during a second intermission around Valentine’s Day. Elvis came out, the team’s mascot served as the best man and the crowd voted on the song for the newlyweds first dance.
The south end of the rink features a patio decorated like a medieval castle, which also serves as a stage for a lot of the in-game productions.
“You know you’re in Vegas,” Sharks forward Evander Kane said. “It’s probably the best atmosphere in the NHL. You think Vegas, you think showtime and they’ve brought that flair to the game.”
It has been suggested that the Knights, like many casinos, add life to the crowd by pumping oxygen into the arena.
“Something’s going on,” Kane joked.
Golden Knights Vice President of Entertainment Jonny Greco got a good chuckle out of the suggestion.
“Isn’t that what all the casinos do? That’s funny,” he said, “but I’ve never heard that before.”
The fans are playing a role in the experience that can’t be overlooked. When Las Vegas first landed the expansion franchise in 2016, a common concern was that the rink would be filled with tourists coming to see the opposing team, sapping the Knights home-ice advantage.
Instead, the city is rallying around its first major-professional sports franchise.
Golden Knights practices routinely draw more than 600 spectators, capacity at the facility in Summerlin, about 12 miles from the Strip. The team holds giant rallies in the plaza in front of TMobile Arena an hour before every game and then thousands of fans parade en masse from the New York-New York casino in a “march to the fortress.”
This is what the Sharks up against. “They’re drumming and chanting and cheering. It’s a total party,” Greco said. “This city deserves so much credit for creating that atmosphere. People are just really excited to have a pro sports team, and on top of that, they’re winning.”