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Story by Alan Snel Photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell
While baseball fans still don’t understand why the Athletics threw away 57 years of loyal fans to leave Oakland for a transient market like Las Vegas, if there was ever a team that needed to leave town it’s the National Hockey League team playing the VGK in an exhibition match at T-Mobile Arena tonight.
The NHL team with two different shades of blue in their “logo,” the Utah Hockey Club is the vestige of a Arizona Coyotes franchise that departed arenas in downtown Phoenix and suburban Glendale, lost a public arena vote in Tempe and ticked off Scottsdale so much that an arena plan never got off the ground there.
A’s owner John Fisher could have spent the $1 billion he plans on doling out for a $1.5 billion stadium on the Strip for an open air ballpark on the port waterfront in Oakland and keep the historic franchise in the East Bay.
But the state of Nevada gave Fisher a $380 million stadium construction subsidy.
So Fisher, the A’s owner who told a Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce crowd in January that he grew up a San Francisco Giants fan, broke the hearts of Oakland baseball fans and will try to create a fan base in a market that did not even have a civic group lobbying for an MLB club.
The Coyotes’ relocation?
This is a legitimate relocation.
The Coyotes were relegated to playing in a college arena and had worn out its welcome after relocating themselves as the old original Winnipeg Jets.
The Utah Hockey Club has 22-year-old Josh Doan playing here in the preseason game, a reminder of the Coyotes franchise scoring leader, his dad, Shane Doan.
The Utah has strong support in Salt Lake City, with an owner who already owns the arena that will house the NHL team.
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The VGK fell behind 1-0 and 2-1, but the Knights ripped off four straight goals to defeat the Utah squad.
Vegas cornerstones like Jack Eichel, Ivan Barbashev and Alex Pietrangelo scored goals. Pavel Dorofeyev and Keegan Kolesar.
Goalie Adin Hill saw his first live game action since losing Game 7 against the Dallas Stars in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs in April. Hill was the man of game from the marketing standpoint, as the Knights handed out Hill pins and posters.
Coach Bruce Cassidy is experimenting with player combinations.
VGK travel to Denver Oct.1 for a preseason game with the Colorado Avalanche.