The Accidental Golden Knights Fan: ‘I Did Not See This Coming’

By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com

 

Sports marketing and sales people adore analytics, demographics and numbers.

 

In Las Vegas, it means easily getting romanced by 43 million annual visitors, 2.1 million residents and tens of thousands of locals who identify themselves as “hard-core” hockey fans.

 

But the people who create professional sports teams could never account for retired widow Dianne West, a lovely lady from Green Valley who was waiting with her son, Jeremy, for a ride after she watched for the first time the Vegas Golden Knights practice at the team’s headquarters in Summerlin Monday.

 

West is a retired Las Vegas Valley Water District worker who lost her husband, Vern, a teacher, seven years ago and watched the genesis of a new National Hockey League franchise in Sin City from afar.

 

In fact, West didn’t even see a Golden Knights game in person at T-Mobile Arena until Jan. 23 when the home team played the Columbus Blue Jackets. She recalls the section — it was Section 5.

 

But Monday around 12:45 p.m., there she sat on a metal bench outside City National Arena, a newly-minted Golden Knights 41-home game season ticket holder for next season and with two tickets purchased for her and her son for Games 1, 2 and 5 at T-Mobile Arena where the Golden Knights will take on the Los Angeles Kings in Round 1 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

 

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Price for two tickets for every Golden Knights home game in the 2018-19 season: $9,740.

 

Price for the two tickets for each of the first three Round 1 playoff home games: $1,600.

 

“I never saw this coming,” West told an LVSportsBiz.com writer today. “I never expected to become a hockey fan.”

 

Yet, big-time professional sports in your local town have a way of slowly worming their way into your heart given the right circumstances — and then your pocketbook.

 

LVSportsBiz.com chatted with this sweet lady to figure out how, first, she became a Golden Knights convert, and, second, how the Golden Knights were able to get West to open her pocket book and hand over more than $11,000 for season and playoff tickets.

 

West said it all began with the emotional home-opener Oct 10 — a mere nine days after a gunman killed 58 country music festival fans at an outdoor venue on the Strip and injured more than 700 others with his array of weaponry.

 

She watched that season opener on TV and was so moved by the Golden Knights’ emotional pregame ceremony to remember the loss of 58 lives, to honor those injured and pay tribute to those first responders and emergency personnel, that she was first hooked into the team’s inaugural season.

 

West has lived in metro Las Vegas since 1982 after growing up in a small Michigan town. And she was emotionally moved by the Golden Knights pregame tribute because it showed the world a different side of Las Vegas.

 

“To me, it was telling the rest of the world who we really are,” West said. “The team offered the opportunity to the world to tell who we in Las Vegas really are.”

 

Then, West took the next step. She began attending games in person. It began with that January game and then she doled out money to attend seven more games with her son. That ticket bill for the eight games during the past 2 1/2 months turned out to be $2,500, West said.

 

At each Golden Knights game that she attended, there was another emotional hook.

 

West recalled Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” was the song that she and her husband loved in 1969, so when the Golden Knights play the song with the team’s own unique twist during every home game, it was as if her late husband, Vern, was still with her.

 

“It pulls on the heart,” West said simply. “Buying the tickets was the right thing to do. . . As you try to carve out a new life for yourself, that’s what got me. It got a grip on me.”

 

West doesn’t collect posters, jerseys, caps or pucks. Instead, she keeps her Golden Knights memories in full detail in a medium-sized planner that she carries in her bag. It includes the games’ dates and all types of treasured notes, entries and pictures.

 

She still has to pick up her Golden Knights jersey. But West showed the best side of sports to her world in Las Vegas. It’s not what’s on the outside of the jersey; it’s what’s inside the heart of a fan.

 

See you at Game 1 at T-Mobile Arena Wednesday, Dianne West.

 

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