By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
Former Golden Knights player Ryan Reaves was known in Las Vegas for his hard hits on the ice, his engaging personality, his craft beer — and Southern Nevada Water Authority water conservation spots where Reaves is seen slamming into a wasteful water customer who is not following the agency’s water restrictions.
Even though the Knights shipped the popular but low-scoring Reaves to the New York Rangers for a third round draft pick Thursday, Reaves will live on in Las Vegas in those TV spots through 2021 and the winter, the water authority’s marketing director told LVSportsBiz.com.
“We’ll likely continue to use our ads through winter,” said Scott Huntley, Southern Nevada Water Authority marketing chief. “We were planning to do new ads next year anyway.”
Before the pandemic in 2019, the water agency was spending $500,000 of its annual $4.9 million marketing budget on sports teams, such as $200,000 to the Vegas Golden Knights and $30,000-$35,000 to Reaves on the water conservation messaging.
Even though Reaves is gone, there will be no refund to the water agency. “The campaign will run till it’s ended. We were going to do new ads next year regardless, so we will get all the use we expected,” Huntley said Thursday evening.
Reaves will be reunited with a familiar face in Madison Square Garden in Manhattan — former Golden Knights coach Gerard Gallant, , who was fired by the VGK in mid-January 2020 but was recently hired by the New York Rangers as their head coach.
Reaves didn’t score many goals, but he was one of the leaders for racial justice among the NHL players who were with playoff teams in the 2020 pandemic bubble.
Reaves also had a fun personality and connected with fans. Here’s Reaves playing in a charity softball game.
He was known for his ferocious checks and his fighting skills on the ice.
While he didn’t notch too many goals, he did score the game-winning goal for the VGK against the Winnipeg Jets in Game 5 of the NHL Conference Finals that catapulted the first-year Vegas franchise to the Stanley Cup Final in 2018.
Reaves was traded two days after former VGK goalie Marc-Andre Fleury was shipped for Chicago for a 23-year-old defenseman who will remain playing with the Chicago organization.