Las Vegas and Golden Knights Celebrate Love Affair With Stanley Cup Championship Parade And Rally Saturday

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   Story by Alan Snel   Photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell

It was a Las Vegas party to remember and this massive bash on the Strip — like Las Vegas’ first major league team — was homegrown.

On a hot, mid-June night in Sin City Saturday, the Vegas Golden Knights celebrated winning the Stanley Cup in 2023.

And as that hockey prophet and VGK owner Bill Foley pointed out tonight, it was Cup in six.

Las Vegas’ love affair with the VGK was in full bloom, juiced up by champagne and beer that flowed readily on the buses that wheeled down the Strip to T-Mobile Arena.

Tens of thousands of joyous fans packed the plaza and lined the heart of the Strip from Flamingo Road to Tropicana Avenue to celebrate the spectacle of hockey love, civic smiles and VGK’s patented over-the-top show for the fans.

The team’s captain, Mark Stone, told the 20,000 fans packed shoulder-to-shoulder on the plaza, “You bring it every night. It makes it special for us. This is an amazing community.”

There were memories galore.

Coach Bruce Cassidy had a message for the crowd: “Back to back, back to back, back to back.”

Goalie Adin Hill, who played spectacular in the Vegas net in place of injured Laurent Brossoit, rocked a UNLV Larry Johnson number four jersey to pay homage to Las Vegas’ first major sports championship.

And then there was Will Karlsson’s epic speech, which touched on many topics from Year 1 to his fellow Misfits pal, Jonathan Marchessault. Karlsson was rather juiced up and had chatted more than two minutes before VGK marketing employee Kim Frank went on stage to take the mic from Wild Bill.

Karlsson introduced Marchessault but had quite the two-minute intro that went viral soon after the rally.