By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
Vegas Golden Knights President Kerry Bubolz got a tip about his speaking engagement audience so he came with props Tuesday.
It was the eighth annual Kick off your Heels Women’s Day luncheon at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open at TPC Summerlin and Bubolz brought a stylish Golden Knights jacket, a slick bicycle kit outfit and a $200 crystal bling puck.
Bubolz, who gets around the metro Las Vegas market so well that you could start a “Where’s Kerry” Saturday morning TV cartoon, admitted that talking in front of so many women was “outside his comfort zone.”
But Bubolz turned out to be a popular guy with the ladies when he broke out a women’s VGK jacket, which was quickly modeled by luncheon emcee Kim Wagner, a Channel 3 morning news anchor.
Several hundred women lunched in The Hill hospitality open structure, which swayed a bit under forceful winds at the par-72, 7,243-yard golf course about 12 miles west of the Strip. Bubolz said VGK retail sales will be stressed in the NHL franchise’s season two, with special efforts on “more female focused products.” Bubolz mentioned that 100 women also participated in a VGK learn to skate program, while 30 women signed up for a learn to play program.
Besides selling licensed VGK logo gear to the masses, the Golden Knights will also prioritize creating the next generation of Golden Knights fans. That means focusing on kids.
ADVERTISEMENT
Bubolz said 3,000 local children participated in a VGK learn how to skate program and 400 have been enrolled in a learn how to play program.
Plus, in February, team representatives, including Bubolz, went to a local middle school to announce a $500,000 program to start street hockey for nearly 80,000 students in the Clark County School District’s 63 middle schools and magnet schools.
The Golden Knights are partnering with NV Energy and the NHL Players Association to buy the equipment to get the students playing street hockey this year. Bubolz and VGK staffers visited Walter Johnson Junior High School Academy of International Studies to announce the Golden Knights Hockey Academy Program last season.
Bubolz had some fun fielding questions and each woman who posed an inquiry received a free Deryk Engelland bobblehead, which was the give-away at a recent VGK home game.
One fan asked Bubolz when a children’s book would be coming out and he mentioned, “We will make it a priority.”
And another woman asked the team president who is the diva on the team.
Bubolz had some fun with that one by quipping, “He’s in Calgary.”
He, of course, was referring to James Neal. Bubolz told the audience that Neal was the only Golden Knights player who would walk out before home games with his teammates through the mirrored corridor from the locker room to the ice rink at T-Mobile Arena and take a glance in the mirror “to make sure his hair was perfect.”
Wagner quipped she knows TV anchors who do likewise.
*
Follow LVSportsBiz.com on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Contact LVSportsBiz.com publisher/writer Alan Snel at asnel@LVSportsBiz.com