Man Who Plays Golden Knight Character At VGK Games Had Emotional Night When Detroit Red Wings Visited T-Mobile Arena Saturday

By ALAN SNEL

LVSportsBiz.com

 

Lee Orchard plays the role of the “Golden Knight” character so well at VGK games that it’s easy to imagine the man from Peterborough, England living his life outside T-Mobile Arena as a knight in a suit of armor on a horse around Las Vegas and banging his shield with a sword in a Burger King drive-thru.

 

But Saturday’s VGK-Detroit Wings game at T-Mobile Arena was an emotional night for Orchard, who wrote on Facebook Friday that his late father Ron’s NHL team was the Red Wings and that his grandmother sent his dad’s beloved Red Wings jersey to him. “Tomorrow I will drape his Detroit jersey over my personal season ticket seats. He will get to watch his Red Wings, the mighty VGK and of course his son in action.”

 

Orchard, 44, is a co-owner of a DJ agency called Soundbite Productions, which supplies DJs across the U.S., including mostly here in Las Vegas. He’s a DJ, too, working often in Caesars. Orchard posted this on social media before Saturday’s game.

 

 

 

 

For Orchard, being a professional meant playing the Golden Knight as he usually does Saturday, leading the march of the Knight Line Drumbots drummers, the Las Vegas showgirls and the cheerleaders through the arena before the game; playing his popular pre-game, on-ice role in the VGK’s well-publicized sword-in-stone ceremony; and stoking the massive crowd of 18,400-plus with his “Go Knights Go” cheer and shield banging.

 

Orchard told LVSportsBiz.com: “He passed away from a rare form of cancer at the end of July 2016, so he knew there was a team coming, but he didn’t know it was to be called VGK, nor did he know that I would be working for them. He would have loved seeing the games here, I would have made sure that he was front a center for the Red Wings games.”

 

“I deliberately waited until  midway through the third period to go up and see Dad’s jersey,” Orchard told LVSportsBiz.com. “I knew it would hit me hard, but I had a job to do. I went down, spent a couple of minutes and knelt at Dad’s side. I waited for the TV time out. I looked at the jersey, gave him a head nod/bow and went back up the aisle.”

 

But most of the fans in the sellout crowd didn’t know that Orchard sat by himself at 4:30 p.m. — 2 1/2 hours before the puck was dropped — in section 228, row F, seat 1 next to his dad’s beloved Red Wings white-and-red jersey. “Please feel free to pass by my seats and tell Ron to join the game,” Orchard had written in his Facebook post. And fans did. Orchard said his girlfriend, Mandy, sat with the jersey for the whole game. “She said numerous friends and fans came down, said hi to Dad and raised their glass to him. It means a lot to my family.”

 

During the quiet time before the game, Orchard “had a little conversation with him Saturday (well, with his jersey). I told him to take it all in, enjoy the game and make sure that I didn’t fall over in the pre-game intro.”

 

 

“Saturday was a tough one. Dad was a huge hockey fan. He loved watching NHL and the UK hockey too. He had been a Red Wings fan for years.

 

“When we arrived at the plaza stage outside on the march, I heard people chanting ‘Ronnie, Ronnie, Ronnie’ . . . I got choked up, just at the wrong time, just as I was about to speak on the mic! But it was an awesome gesture and very much appreciated . . . thanks VGK fans for being amazing and having respect for Dad’s memory.”

 

Orchard said his dad would have had a laugh after his Red Wings beat the Golden Knights, 3-2, in overtime. “I can just hear him now, ‘Leo, the best team won, back to the drawing board!’ ”

Orchard noted his father would have also loved the whole production and the passion in T-Mobile Arena: “Dad was a hockey fan. As long as the game was great, play was hard and there were goals, he didn’t mind which teams he watched.”

 

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The Golden Knights return to action Monday when they play the St. Louis Blues at 5 p.m. Vegas time. The Knights play the Avalanche in Denver Wednesday and return to Las Vegas to play the Minnesota Wild Friday at 7 p.m.

 

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