VGK Wolverine Superfan On Knights Season Ticket Payments: ‘It Seems Things Should Be Put On Hold Until Final Decisions For This Season And Next Are Made’
By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
There are times when even The Wolverine has to speak his mind.
Las Vegas resident Jason Griego, the well-known Vegas Golden Knights fan known as “The Wolverine” because he looks like the fictional comic book character at VGK games, said he loves the Golden Knights and was not angry about the contents of an email sent by the Knights to season ticket holders Monday. The email from the Knights ticket reps reminded season ticket holders about paying for their seats for the 2020-21 season. Take a look.
Griego said, however, he was “surprised that with all the unknowns going on with the NHL for the current season that the organization would require their season ticket members to resume payments on next year’s season. I’m disappointed that there’s not even a current 4 game reimbursement for this year’s remaining home games yet.”
The National Hockey League paused the 2019-20 season March 12 because of the COVID-19 pandemic that has gone on to claim the lives of 90,000 Americans. At the time, all the sports leagues and games were shut down.
The worldwide virus has had profound health and economic impacts on the U.S., including the sports seasons in the NHL, NBA and Major League Baseball.
The pandemic has also created a thorny and problematic issue for teams and fans, who have spent thousands of dollars on tickets for games that have been wiped out and for future games that are in doubt of being held.
While Griego the Golden Knights season ticketholder may come off as a colorful character at VGK home games, back in real life he’s a retired 24-year Air Force veteran and dad who gives generous amounts of time to coaching the Junior Golden Knights youth hockey teams. He measured his words carefully about the Golden Knights ticket payment email because he’s not angry but just surprised about its contents.
“It seems things should be put on hold until final decisions for this season and next are made. With Las Vegas such a close community based city and the way the fans embraced the team I wished that they would have a better pulse on what impact the shutdown of the city had on numerous season ticket holders’ ability to budget their funds as normal,” Griego told LVSportsBiz.com Monday.
“Paying for unknowns doesn’t seem fair, and puts unnecessary pressure on many people,” Griego said.
LVSportsBiz.com texted Golden Knights communications head Eric Tosi Monday about Griego’s comments to see if the Knights would like to respond. We did not hear back as of Monday night.
Another high-profile VGK superfan, Christopher Green, offered his perspective: “While it is unfortunate the course of events have brought us to this point, and there are certainly many options to move forward, I understand and support the decisions by the team and the league. It’s sad season ticket members will not receive a refund but I fully understand the business case. I can only hope we can move swiftly out of this dark time in our history.
“Our short story has been filled with unknowns, dashed hopes, crushed dreams, monetary losses and even anger and unhappiness. We will hopefully climb out of this tragic circumstance and, in true Vegas form, come back stronger and better. We Are #VegasBorn and always will be #VegasStrong.”
Here are the state of Nevada’s COVID-19 numbers as of Monday:
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