Golden Knights Fans Move Into Pep Talk Mode For SCF Game 5 In Las Vegas
By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
Sports seasons come and they go, but this particular hockey season in Las Vegas has a feel of immortality to it for the thousands of fans who built their lives around a team from Sin City with the most unusual of desert names, the Golden Knights.
The ruthless Oct. 1 mass shooting killings on the Strip did not necessarily define the Golden Knights’ inaugural 2017-18 season. But the 58 mortally wounded and another 600 injured are intertwined into the passions and emotions of a community that came together over big league ice hockey.
That’s why fans Thursday were extra wired because their Golden Knights trail three games to one to the Washington Capitals in the Stanley Cup Finals and are now a mere loss away from ending a first-year season that will never be duplicated in the annals of sports.
Game 5 starts at 5 p.m. at T-Mobile Arena Thursday. And LVSportsBiz.com caught up with a cross-section of fans at the Golden Knights’ practice facility in suburban Summerlin to get a sense of what this season meant to their lives and their outlook on what could potentially be the season’s final game.
Inside the VGK practice arena, Las Vegas residents Ashley Dyal and Katie Leavitt were at the top of the bleachers and folding their large sign that read, “Remember Who You Are.”
Dyal said the sign’s message focused on the team’s work to unite and heal a Las Vegas fractured by the Oct. 1 mass shootings and to remember their role in the community that benefited from their early season success after a regular season home-opener Oct. 10.
Dyal observed that there’s nothing more Golden Knights than to win three games in a row to win the Stanley Cup when the sports world is counting the first-year team out.
“They are so consistent and I’m hopeful they will still take it and win it in Game 7,” said Dyal’s friend, Leavitt. Both are members of a womens-only Facebook Golden Knights page.
“But if not, we will still be proud of them,” Leavitt said. “I would be sorry for their sake. They deserved it. They just didn’t have their best games.”
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Dave Abbott is a South Dakota ear, nose and throat doctor with a second home on the Strip and he was waiting on line to get into the VGK team store at the training center.
He said the manner in which the Golden Knights responded to the Oct. 1 shootings played a big part in the close emotional connection between team and fan base.
“My hope is that it carries on to next year,” Abbott said.
The team’s Oct. 1 response, he said, “has a lot to do with the reason why the fans love the team so much. The off-the-ice stuff has been as big as the on-the-ice stuff.”
The fan base has an array of colorful characters, ranging from Air Force retiree Jason “The Wolverine” Griego to pint-sized 10-year-old Logan “The Girl With The Hat” Sokoloski, who became enamored with the Golden Knights after the team beat the Colorado Avalanche, 7-0, on Nevada Day Oct. 27.
“I don’t think it will be the last game of the season today,” Logan told LVSportsBiz.com after today’s practice. “The atmosphere is going to be crazy and that will affect the players.”
Logan’s dad, David Sokoloski, said VGK goalie Marc-Andre Fleury gave her daughter the “Girl With The Hat” nickname because she chatted with players after practices.
Dad mentioned that Logan will be hopping a ride on the Zamboni sponsored by local lawyer Adam Kutner during today’s Game 5 at T-Mobile Arena.
Speaking of Fleury, a local artist, Tyler Corbin, was at the practice facility inviting fans to sign a 24-inch-by-36-inch artwork he created to give to the Golden Knights goaltender. He said he created the artwork as a tribute to Gianna and Natalia Baca, twin girls who were injured in the Oct. 1 shooting massacre.
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