Cup finalists D.C., Vegas both are sin city worthy
Las Vegas and Washington, our Stanley Cup finalists, are starkly different places. Let us count the ways.
Desert versus swamp. Glamorous versus clamorous. Sin City versus, well, sin city.
How different are they? Just watch the pregame festivities at the Cup Final, which continues Thursday night in Las Vegas. The Vegas Golden Knights offer smoke-and-mirrors spectacle. The Washington Capitals give us buy-a-vowel blandness.
Hey, nothing wrong with either approach. Each is brilliantly on brand. Vegas is the Strip, with bright lights and floor shows. Washington is the Hill, with backrooms and floor votes.
Vegas is white tigers on stage. Washington is pandas on loan.
Vegas is cool. And Washington is, um, not.
Sure, Washington is the nation’s capital. But Vegas is billed as fun capital of the world in the poster for 1964’s Viva Las Vegas. Elvis sang the song and starred in the movie. In fact, he makes a useful barometer for the cool quotient betwixt these sin cities.
Vegas is Elvis the Pelvis and blue suede shoes. Washington is John Philip Sousa and wingtips. Oh, and Washington is also this: Fat Elvis posing with Richard Nixon in the Oval Office in 1970, history’s most-requested photo in the National Archives.
Frank Sinatra was a skinny crooner when he appeared in 1941’s Las Vegas Nights — a sort of first iteration of the Vegas Knights. Smithsonian Magazine, which is published in Washington, ran a travel story in 2013 that told how Sinatra was the spark that morphed Vegas from dusty Western outpost to entertainment hub.
Still, the District of Columbia has some claim on Ol’ Blue Eyes too. Sinatra wowed Washington in 1961 at a gala for Kennedy’s inaugural and again in 1981 at a gala for Reagan’s first. That one was at Capital Centre, which was then home ice for the Caps.
Vegas is Sinatra’s Rat Pack. Washing- ton is Nixon’s rat(blanking) – a term for political sabotage that is vulgar Nixonian, not fit for Smithsonian.
Washington is the Watergate. Vegas is the Flamingo.
Washington is white marble. Vegas is flashing neon.
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, or so the slogan goes. What happens in Washington most assuredly does not stay in Washington. For instance, the Supreme Court recently paved the way for full-scale sports gambling in states beyond Nevada.
Speaking of which, oddsmakers had the Knights as slight betting favorites before the Stanley Cup Final began. Now the Caps hold a 3-1 series lead. Teams with that lead are 32-1 in Cup Finals, which bodes well for Washington. But the Capitals have lost 3-1 series leads in other playoff rounds five times, more than any other team, which bodes ill.
The last time a Stanley Cup finalist lost a 3-1 series lead was in 1942. That’s just before mobster Bugsy Siegel arrived on the Vegas scene.
Washington is lawmakers. Vegas is lawbreakers – though, to be fair, that’s just Bugsy.
Vegas is showstoppers. Washington is showboaters – though, to be fair, that’s just Congress.
This tale of two cities offers one more key contrast. Soon one of these expansion teams – the 44-year-old one or the 8-month-old one – sup from Lord Stanley’s Cup. And the other, alas, will thirst for it.