Sports Might Be Back, But Many Fans Stay Home To Watch Pandemic’s Re-Boot Of Games
By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
There they were — sports in all of its big screen, in-living-color splendor at the Red Rock Resort sportsbook Thursday evening.
The local Vegas Golden Knights were back, playing an exhibition game against the Arizona Coyotes in the pandemic bubble in Edmonton. Meanwhile, the Battle of LA, Lakers vs. Clippers, headlined the NBA game on the Red Rock screen. And Major League Baseball West Coast hardball featured Dodgers vs. Diamondbacks, Padres vs. Giants and Mariners vs. Angels, with those trio of games also on the video board.
Sports might be back.
But all the fans aren’t. Not in the sports stadiums and arenas. And not packing sportsbooks or sports restaurants.
There is, after all, a novel coronovirus pandemic in full force that has claimed the lives of 150,000 Americans as the NBA and NHL resume their games in a bubble environment designed to halt the spread of COVID-19.
Across the street from the Red Rock hotel-casino at City National Arena, the Golden Knights’ training center and headquarters, VGK fans skated on a rink normally used by the Knights players for practice and watched the VGK play Arizona in a warm-up exhibition game on a big screen in the rink. The Knights have not played in 4 1/2 months, but fans were happy to see the Knights in the rink’s video board and also in the MacKenzie River pizzeria in the building.
The pizzeria was not full as many VGK fans watched the game in their homes in light of the pandemic and its need for social distancing. The VGK telecast was broadcast by an Arizona Coyotes media team through the NHL Network.
But the organization did open one of CNA’s practice rinks for fans to skate and watch the game. One of the skaters was a hockey fan in a full Coyotes costume wearing an Arizona goalie Darcy Kuemper number 35 jersey.
For the record, the Knights beat the Coyotes in the tune-up game, 4-1, while the Lakers defeated the Clippers by two points.
The Knights start their postseason Aug. 3 with a game against the Dallas Stars in the first of three round-robin games to determine seeding in the Western Conference playoffs.
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