By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
The Vegas Golden Knights’ pregame video showing the team’s theatrical knight character vanquishing a king, munching sliced shark and slicing a jet in two was amusing while also stoking the delirious emotions of a crowd of more than 18,000 VGK fans during the Stanley Cup playoffs’ first three rounds.
The Knights’ over-the-top, pure-Vegas theatrics in the pregame video and live shows depicting the Knights beating the Los Angeles Kings, San Jose Sharks and Winnipeg Jets drew lots of attention from everyone from the New York Times to ESPN hockey commentator/former NHL team coach Barry Melrose.
But the Knights’ Stanley Cup Finals opponent — the Washington Capitals, a team with a nickname referring to the country’s seat of federal government — will pose a fascinating challenge for VGK in-game entertainment chief Jonny Greco to figure how to wipe out a federal symbol while also not offending Americans.
What to do?
The Washington Capitals have an eagle on their jersey. Pierce an eagle with a sword? Sounds messy — and bird lovers and PETA would be enraged.
Take out George Washington or 535 members of Congress in a dramatic, Vegas-like skit? Sounds inappropriate, even for Las Vegas.
And don’t even think about messing with the flag or constitution. People get angry when you even bring up the topics.
But people have already begun discussing this issue on Twitter.
And someone has already suggested the knight performer, played by Lee Orchard, fighting an eagle
Golden Knights fan Norm Nusbaum, who lives in northwest valley, thought the VGK’s pregame show could be about the nation’s father, George Washington, trying to cross the Delaware River and “he doesn’t make it.”
Are you listening, Jonny Greco? How do you like that idea?
LVSportsBiz.com bounced the pregame Capitals issue off defenseman Jon Merrill, who joked that the entertainment folks could mess with President Trump as a symbol of Washington and that would “make the biggest cheers.”
But Merrill, who attended the University of Michigan and grew up in the U.S., noted it’s a tricky thing to “poke fun” at the U.S. capitol and its symbols and it would have to be “politically correct.”
Here’s a peak at previous pregame action.
Las Vegas — and I mean Mayor Carolyn Goodman, Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak and others — have come up with the idea of not using capital letters in social media and public statements to rally locals, scare the Washington Capitals and root on the Vegas Golden Knights.
There was a photo posted on social media showing the famed “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” signs with letters all in lower case.
And folks began jumping on the no caps bandwagon. Sisolak, the unofficial sports commissioner of Clark County, tweeted this.
Even MGM Resorts International, which owns a share of T-Mobile Arena, began taking the no caps approach.
But game host “Big D” — one of the Golden Knights’ two emcee hosts who work the T-Mobile Arena crowd — pointed out the photo with the “no caps” Las Vegas welcome sign was a photoshop job. Big D, in a Tweet, said he drove by the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign and saw the letters were all caps still.
“Just drove by, All I see is caps! Let’s do it FOR REAL!!!,” Big D tweeted.
Big D, now that’s what I call reporting.
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We will have to wait and see Monday at 5 p.m. local Las Vegas time when arena PA announcer Bruce Cuscik booms out it’s “Knight Time” and the pregame show begins.
Once thing for sure — it will be 100 percent pure Vegas.
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Saturday’s practice was packed at City National Arena, the Golden Knights’ practice center and the team had to start turning away fans about a half-hour before the practice began because of safety concerns from the fans packing the practice arena. The first fans began showing up at 6:30 a.m. for the 11 a.m. practice today.
On Friday, fans were clogging stands walkways and stair steps during the 11 a.m. practice and the team declared a new policy later Friday afternoon. LVSportsBiz.com eyeballed the Saturday crowd and figured about 500 in the stands, along the top railing and along the rink.
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Interested in the latest on the secondary ticket market for Knights-Caps. TicketIQ has the data and ticket prices here. There’s a ticket for $725 and goes up from there.
Here is some more interesting data from Ticket IQ. The VGK-CAPS is 31 percent more expensive than LAK-NYR for combined ‘get-in’ price, which is cheapest ticket available across both venues. The series is 100 percent higher than the cheapest combined average of $409 for BOS-CHI (an original six match-up).
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