By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
VGK Coach Gerard Gallant looked like he was in a chipper mood Friday a few minutes after 11 a.m. at the Golden Knights headquarters in suburban Summerlin.
It was time for his 11 a.m. press conference and Gallant noticed a hockey writer who likes to ask hockey strategy questions wasn’t around, so the guy who goes by “Turk” wondered out loud why Sheng Peng from HockeyBuzz.com wasn’t in the small press conference room.
Then, it was off to only a handful of questions and the shortest meet-the-media session for Gallant.
I asked him how many friends and family are asking him about tickets for the Stanley Cup Finals, which begin Monday at 5 p.m. local Las Vegas time when the Golden Knights host the Washington Capitals.
Gallant was smiling when he mentioned close friends and family will be in T-Mobile Arena, but some friends know it will be “impossible” to get tickets for them while others will watch the Cup Finals on TV.
After the 10 minutes of Q and A, VGK communications chief Eric Tosi gathered the media and advised that team practices will remain open to the public. But there will be a cutoff on the number of fans who will be able to watch the sessions. I did notice Thursday that fans were sardined into the stands and clogging steps and stairs by literally sitting down on the steps in the wall-to-wall crowd.
So it’s first-come, first-admitted to the free practices.
Here’s the team’s official statement.
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Fans and tickets.
It’s the Stanley Cup playoffs and ticket prices increase round to round, ranging any where from 33 – 66 percent. Golden Knights season ticket holders who have full-year deals and who took the “knight’s vow” playoff ticket deal to agree to not re-sell their tickets received the best prices.
One upper-bowl season ticket holder said his Game 1 ticket is $205, up from $150 per seat for the Western Conference Finals.
LVSportsBiz.com caught up with Golden Knights fan Norm Nusbaum, a freelance video production guy who has a quarter-season ticket deal.
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Nusbaum said paying for his Golden Knights playoffs has meant cutting out an East Coast baseball trip to Philadelphia and Washington during the summer. He has an upper bowl seat and under his quarter-season ticket deal, the playoff ticket prices have escalated from $100 a seat in Round 1 to $175 in Round 2 to $250 in Round 3 and $450 for the Stanley Cup playoffs.
“People are spending a lot of money they didn’t expect to spend,” Nusbaum told LVSportsBiz.com over lunch this week. “It has to be affecting what people buy, whether they go out to eat. The prices are a little nuts.”
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The Stanley Cup match-up between Vegas and Washington is bringing soaring prices on the secondary market.
The least expensive ticket on StubHub for Monday’s Game 1 was $800 for an upper end 214 section seat as of 5 p.m. Friday. There were tickets also near center ice near the glass going for $3,000 to $6,400 on StubHub Friday.
Here’s the TicketIQ take on the average ticket price on the secondary ticket market. TickeyIQ has an average VGK ticket price on the secondary market at $2,505.
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LVSportsBiz.com caught up with defensemen Jon Merrill and Shea Theodore to find out how to keep Capitals high-scoring wildman Alex Ovechkin in check. First, Theodore.
And Merrill.
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Winnipeg mayor pays up.
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It’s not a day at the Golden Knights training center without Rick Williams of Summerlin and Bark-Andre Furry.
And here is your Stanley Cup Finals schedule.
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