By Alan Snel
LVSportsBiz.com
San Jose, Calif. — Frenetic.
The Vegas Golden Knights picked up the pace Friday night after a 5-2 loss to the San Jose Sharks two night ago, jumping on the Sharks for three goals in the first period tonight.
The Sharks countered with three goals near the end of the first period to knot the score at three before VGK forward Mark Stone scored a power play goal to give the VGK a 4-3 lead in the second period and Knights forward William Karlsson scored a gorgeous short-handed goal to cap the scoring at 5-3. The best-of-7 series resumes in Las Vegas for Game 3 Sunday at T-Mobile Arena with the series tied at a game apiece.
It was a sellout crowd of 17,562 at the SAP Center, with more Golden Knights fans in the arena Friday night than on Wednesday evening when the Sharks controlled every facet of play en route to a Game 1 win.
It was a different Golden Knights team that showed up Tuesday. They played more aggressively and forced the Sharks into mistakes with Cody Eakin scoring 58 seconds into the game, followed by a short-handed goal by Colin Miller and Max Pacioretty’s goal. It was 3-0 VGK after six minutes and 11 seconds.
But the Sharks went on a three-goal scoring spree in the final three minutes and a second of period one. The stats looked crazy.
Despite taking too many penalties, the Knights held on for the 5-3 win.
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At 26 years old, the San Jose Sharks’ arena in downtown San Jose is hardly a modern sports venue like T-Mobile Arena, a three-year-old sports palace that was a big reason why the NHL Lords greenlighted major league hockey for Las Vegas.
But while the SAP Center, which hosts Game 2 between the Golden Knights and Sharks Friday, doesn’t come off as an architectural jewel with its silver washboard exterior, it’s a highly practical arena on the inside that packs 17,500 and doesn’t have wasted space between the lower and upper bowls.
It makes the Shark Tank a boisterous Sea of Teal, because the seats are close to the action on the ice and the interior area behind the concrete seat supports include more club, bar and social space than you would expect for a building that opened in 1993 and is the third oldest NHL arena behind the Garden in New York and the Calgary Flames’ home.
Only a second-year team in the National Hockey League, the Golden Knights have some history here because the VGK’s clinching win in Round 2 of the 2018 Stanley Cup playoffs came at the SAP Center when the Knights defeated the Sharks in six games to advance to the Western Conference Finals.
The four-level arenag has one main concourse where fans go either into the lower bowl or go up into the upper bowl. It functions like UNLV’s Thomas and Mack Center, in that regard.
At the SAP Center, reporters lament a press box that was added to the arena design plans. Structural beams supporting the roof cross in front of some views from media seats in the press box.
And in the past, some hockey international radio broadcasts literally originated from the catwalks when the Sharks played in the Stanley Cup Finals three years ago. A tech showed me those radio crew spots. Pity the radio broadcaster with a fear of heights.
But LVSportsBiz.com reported VGK-Sharks Games 1 and 2 from an auxiliary press area at the top of the upper bowl here this week and had an efficient writing space and WiFi to file stories.
After the NHL approved a franchise for San Jose, the Sharks upgraded the building to add suites, the press box and more seats. In 1990, the NHL had greed to allow brothers George and Gordon Gund, previous owners of the old Minnesota North Stars, to have a team in San Jose. (The Gunds paid $50 million to the NHL for the Sharks franchise, while Golden Knights owner Bill Foley and his partners paid $500 million to the NHL for the Las Vegas franchise.)
The arena is in the home of Silicon Valley, so it’s no surprise the arena’s naming rights went to computer and software companies. Compaq bought the naming rights in 2001. And after HP bought Compaq a year later the arena was called HP Pavilion after one of its computers.
Nearly six years ago, the German software business SAP bought the arena’s naming rights with Sharks owner/German businessman Hasso Plattner also SAP’s chairman. The naming rights price is valued at $3.35 million per year — less than what T-Mobile pays for the Las Vegas arena where the Golden Knights play behind New York-New York hotel-casino.
The arena’s sound system is solid and in 2007 the arena installed a new center Jumbotron with an LED video system bought from Daktronics, a leading video display board manufacturer that sold the biggest minor league baseball scoreboard to Howard Hughes Corporation for its new $150 million Las Vegas Aviators baseball park in Summerlin.
Here are some SAP Center light and sound practice peaks.
The Sharks are the SAP Center’s primary tenant, but the arena does host basketball games. For example, the arena in San Jose was the Golden State Warriors’ home court for the 1996-97 season when the team’s arena — Oracle Arena — was being renovated. And just recently, the NCAA college basketball first and second rounds were staged at the SAP Center in March.
The first round series between the Knights and Sharks shifts to T-Mobile Arena for Games 3 and 4 Sunday and Tuesday.
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Here’s a fun interview with a VGK fan who bought tickets for tonight’s game straight from the Sharks. He’s stoked.
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