In This Crazy World, Vegas Golden Knights Season-Opener On Strip Brings Smiles And Pinch Of Normalcy Thursday
By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
In this messed-up, sadness-filled, convoluted world of a novel coronavirus that has killed 383,000 Americans, two impeachments, one U.S. Capitol invasion and the recent deaths of Las Vegans Tony Hsieh, Sheldon Adelson and now Siegfried Fischbacher, the Vegas Golden Knights are coming to rescue.
Again.
The Golden Knights’ season-opener for Year 4 could not come fast enough. It’s today at the Big Ice House by the Strip, T-Mobile Arena.
No matter how much people disagree about stuff these days, the Knights have a knack of getting everyone in Las Vegas on the same page. The giddy local TV station news anchor people can’t hold back their unbridled enthusiasm for the home team. Social media posts are dominated with Las Vegas folks donning their steel gray, retro red and golden jerseys. And an NHL season starting in mid-January — as odd as it may seem — has brought smiles to people from the Strip to Summerlin, from Boulder City to North Las Vegas.
“I don’t think anything seems normal. We have to roll with the punches,” forward Reilly Smith said this morning during a Zoom session.
Nearly a year ago, the Golden Knights shocked Las Vegas with news that Gerard Gallant was fired as head coach. Yes, that was Jan. 15, 2020.
But that was pre-pandemic, and seems decades ago.
The San Jose Sharks’ old coach, Pete DeBoer, became the Golden Knights’ new coach. And his fingerprints are all over this fourth-year NHL franchise.
This Golden Knights team, which has lost original Misfits like Nate Schmidt and Jon Merrill to other teams and Deryk Engelland to retirement, now has a big man named Robin Lehner in goal instead of super-popular Marc-Andrew Fleury. And the club has its first captain — Mark Stone.
There won’t be any fans in the hockey barn tonight, but Carnell “Golden Pipes” Johnson will be singing the national anthem and arena host Mark Shunock will be back doing his thing in the venue minus all the fans. And there is a PDF for your game day poster. The shortened 56-game season includes play only inside teams’ own division.
There will be video highlights and replays on the center-hung jumbotron scoreboard, plus the loud music. Though without 18,000 screaming fans, there’s no way you can re-create that fanatical milieu at T-Mobile Arena, as DeBoer pointed out in a Zoom session Wednesday.
So Las Vegas moves forward tonight — or skates forward — as the home town Golden Knights do what all great sports teams do that many institutions cannot: bind together people of many different opinions onto one common town square of more than 2 million people in the Las Vegas market.
LVSportsBiz.com will be at the arena to report on tonight’s VGK vs Anaheim Ducks game. There will be no Top of the Escalator pre-game show, but please look for our coverage online here.
