By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
The NHL is calling it playoff hockey. But without fans and the collective experience of 18,000 delirious people sharing a singular emotion of watching Stanley Cup postseason games, there’s a tangible missing element to the Pandemic Playoffs north of the border.
But without the primal cheering and big crowds comes the unique opportunity for fans back in TV land in Las Vegas to hear the funny, amusing and colorful verbal skills and sounds of Golden Knights players like Ryan Reaves and Jonathan Marchessault through the broadcast audio 1,500 miles away back here in Southern Nevada.
LVSportsBiz.com, through Zoom media sessions Monday, asked VGK coach Pete DeBoer how he keeps a straight face behind the bench when he hears the Knights players chirping away with funny quips.
“They’re witty guys. There’s a lot of witty comments and they’re sharp guys and they have a good sense of humor,” DeBoer said Monday morning from the NHL playoff Bubble in Edmonton.
One of Sunday’s audio highlights in the VGK 5-0 win over Vancouver was Reaves goofing on Canucks’ forward Antoine Roussel by doing chicken sounds.
So Monday, LVSportsBiz.com asked Knights players William Karlsson and Zach Whitecloud through Zoom who they would rank as the top three chirpers on the team.
Whitecloud went with Reaves and Marchessault, one and two, and they didn’t come up with a third. Here’s that video from Monday’s Zoom session.
“We have a lot of talkers,” Karlsson observed.
Game 2 between VGK and Vancouver is Tuesday.
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