Golden Knights Beefing Up Outreach To Hispanic-Latino Fans With ‘LosVGK’ Initiatives; Final: Chicago 4 Vegas 3 OT In Nevada Day Matinee
Story by Alan Snel Photos by Hugh Byrne
It’s hardly a secret that the National Hockey League has a diversity challenge.
Here in Las Vegas, the Golden Knights have added a lot to the league by infusing their games with entertainment features and over-the-top shtick to draw the more casual fan to their loud funhouse of hockey on the Strip.
Now the Golden Knights are also beefing up their product in another way by amplifying their efforts to reach more Spanish-speaking locals who identify as Hispanic-Latino — initiatives that could serve to spark other teams around the NHL to follow suit
The Golden Knights call it,”LosVGK,” and it was just unveiled this week.
“It’s more of a continuation (of the Hispanic-Latino outreach) and next part of the evolution,” VGK Chief Marketing Officer Eric Tosi told LVSportsBiz.com of the new LosVGK program. “In our own assessment, we plateaued and wanted to find a more impactful way and take a multi-faceted way to amplify our efforts.”
Here are some of the LosVGK initiatives:
- A full-time staff member, Ben Thomas, a Las Vegas native and Mexican-American hired in the new role of director of Latino Marketing and Outreach.
- An exclusive logo designed by Stephanie Suominen, a Golden Knights staff member of Colombian descent whose previous work includes player-worn VGK Hispanic Heritage Knight jerseys.
- A line of merchandise featuring the LosVGK logo on T-shirts, hoodies, hats, and pucks that is available at The Arsenal at City National Arena and The Livery at America First Center in Henderson.
- A LosVGK page on the team website, the first of what will be many bilingual pages on vegasgoldenknights.com.
Before today’s Vegas-Chicago Nevada Day matinee game, LVSportsBiz.com caught up with Thomas, 28, who has combined his digital marketing experience, UNLV Urban Leadership masters degree and love for sports into his new gig that he started only last month.
Thomas said 17.5 percent of VGK’s fan base identifies as Hispanic-Latino and 60 percent of that number are female, with more than one-third of the Hispanic-Latino fans under 35 years old.
With that type of fan base, the Golden Knights are working on a project that would allow fans using the VGK website to toggle between English and Spanish languages, Thomas said. He noted that would be a first for the NHL. The Montreal Canadiens website toggles between English and French, Thomas said.
At today’s Nevada Day game, there were many kids in the arena. And students are a logical place for LosVGK to connect.
Tosi said 47 percent of Clark County School District’s 315,000 students identify as Hispanic-Latino — so a major chunk of the franchise’s future fan base could rest with students coming from Spanish-speaking households.
“It’s all about dedicating resources to make the game available to as many kids as possible,” Tosi said.
The Knights already have a Spanish-speaking play-by-play radio announcer in Jesus Lopez and those special heritage night game jerseys.
The franchise wanted to build on that, so the VGK went to the National Hockey League for help, telling the league “we have a need,” Thomas explained.
One logical way to build the LosVGK brand is selling merch in the form of hats, shirts and hoodies. Thomas said nearly all the hoodies at the team store at the City National Arena training center have been sold.
The LosVGK program unveiling coincides with the Golden Knights bringing youth hockey to the former Fiesta Rancho and Texas Station site in North Las Vegas, which has a sizable Hispanic-Latino population. Tosi noted that the development announcement in North Las Vegas was not an official part of the LosVGK program as the timing was coincidental.
Regarding that site redevelopment project, Tosi said, “Having a more significant presence is good for the expansion of our brand. It’s not an official part of the LosVGK strategy. But when there’s more ice it enables us to introduce the game to more people.”
The Golden Knights started their game against the Chicago Blackhawks and the much-hypoed rookie Connor Bedard with two goals by Pavel Dorofeyev and William Karlsson in the first period and it seemed like the defending Stanley Cup champs were off to their eighth straight win to start the season.
But then the Knights players began messing with the puck — “puck mismanagement” would be a phrase to use.
The Blackhawks responded with two goals by Ryan Donato and Bedard off a one-timer and just like that the game was tied at two apiece after the first period.
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After a scoreless second period, the Knights made another blunder.
Defenseman Shea Theodore whiffed on a pass and the Blackhawks’ Taylor Raddysh picked up the gift, skated a few strides and fired the puck past goalie Adin Hill early in the third period.
Theodore managed to make amends, a little, by scoring the game-tying goal. Off to overtime the game went tied at three.
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In OT, Karlsson was whistled for tripping and off he went to the box.
Eventually, the Blackhawks gave the Knights their first loss of the season when the Blackhawks’ Philipp Kurashev scored in OT.
It was likely that every reporter covering coach Bruce Cassidy’s postgame presser quoted him as saying, “We did not execute at an NHL level.”
And with that, Vegas took their 7-0-1 record on a corporate jet to Los Angeles to play the Kings Saturday night before returning for a game against the Canadiens on Monday here at the Big Ice House by the Strip.
