On Oct. 1, Some Will Remember A Different San Jose Sharks Team — The One That Played VGK Only Hours Before America’s Deadliest Mass Shooting
By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
San Jose Sharks and a Sunday preseason game for the Vegas Golden Knights.
Las Vegas hockey fans are fresh off last night’s Sharks-Nights/WWE battle to end the 2019 preseason schedule, which concluded with the VGK sporting a 5-2 record. The Knights defeated San Jose, 5-1, as SJS forward Evander Kane lost his cool and was tossed for abusing a ref in a third period dominated by chippy play on both sides.
San Jose has grown into the team’s chief rival after the Sharks and Golden Knights have battled in two consecutive playoff years.
But I remember a different San Jose team.
It was the Sharks that played the Knights in a 2017 preseason game at T-Mobile Arena only a few hours before a madman used a Mandalay Bay hotel corner suite to shoot hundreds of bullets at country music fans at the Route 91 Harvest outdoor festival across the street Oct. 1, 2017. The mass shooting left 58 dead and more than 500 injured.
That day changed Las Vegas forever. The Oct. 1 killings and the birth of the Golden Knights franchise (the home opener was Oct. 10, 2017) are entwined. In early October two years ago, there were more important things to focus on than hockey for a hurting city in mourning.
The Knights stepped up. Players nearly two years ago visited blood donation centers and tried to help first responders and survivors cope best they could in the days following the Oct. 1 massacre, the nation’s deadliest shooting.
Sadly, mass shootings have become common news in the U.S. They happen everywhere — in bars and newspaper offices, synagogues and Wal-Marts. No place is immune. The national government has not taken any meaningful action in response to the mass shootings that plague this nation.
The Golden Knights have invited first responders and others affected by the Oct. 1 shooting to a VGK practice at City National Arena Tuesday to remember the slaughter of two years ago on the Strip. It’s closed to the public. The Knights say lunch will be provided for all attendees at the MacKenzie River Pizzeria at the team’s training center, with VGK players joining them for a meet-and-greet.
Las Vegas is yearning for the start of Year 3 Wednesday at T-Mobile Arena. But tomorrow at the Knights’ practice center in suburban Summerlin, the emotions will be focused on remembering those lost and honoring those who risked their lives to save so many.
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