By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
Bill Foley has appeared in Vegas Golden Knights videos before.
But Saturday night, not only was the Golden Knights owner in a new VGK pregame video but his own helicopter made a cameo in the video that re-introduced the sword-in-stone feature that Foley likes so much.
A 1967 West Point graduate from Texas, Foley also played a creative role in the making of the military-themed video, working with the team’s VP for events and entertainment, Jonny Greco.
“Bill was involved with the creative dialogue,” VGK president Kerry Bubolz told LVSportsBiz.com Sunday. “Fans deserve an active and engaged owner and that’s what we have with Bill.”
With the season about half over, the Golden Knights officials thought it was a good time to freshen up the pregame show that has been a national attention-grabber for an NHL team because the presentation and style are so over-the-top, and so Vegas.
In the two-minute video, Nellis Air Force Base chipped in with the military jeeps as military-looking personnel recover the stone-in-sword in the Nevada desert as Foley plays a commander chatting on a radio. A military character in the video tells Foley, “Jackpot, we found them.”
Foley responds, “Good job.”
Foley’s is smitten with his concept of the sword-in-stone ceremony, coming up with the idea well before the NHL ever approved the hockey franchise for Las Vegas. The Knights literally rolled it out again Saturday night when the Pittsburgh Penguins came to T-Mobile Arena after it was a popular pregame rite during the inaugural season.
Bubolz said Foley worked on the video by brainstorming with Greco, who oversees the Golden Knights’ much-heralded in-game entertainment production. The team will continue to tweak the pregame show and keep it evolving, he said.
“We want it to be entertaining,” Bubolz said. “It’s not going to make perfect sense.”
And that’s Las Vegas for you.
Take a look at the updated VGK pregame show, which started with the Foley video. This YouTube item was posted by Sports Adrenalin in Las Vegas.
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Foley has appeared in previous Golden Knights videos, including the funny “Mean Tweets” video that highlighted some of the Tweets posted after the team unveiled Chance the mascot during season one.
LVSportsBiz.com will be returning to T-Mobile Arena Monday, when the Golden Knights host the Minnesota Wild for a game that starts at 3 p.m. on Martin Luther King Day.
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