Story by Alan Snel Photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — The end of the sellouts was hardly a surprise for the Vegas Golden Knights management.
They reduced the number of tickets sold directly to ticket brokers — a number that used to be counted in the announced game attendance.
The standing room areas flanking the arena castle behind a goal and the triangle-shaped perches jutting out high above the corners of the rink also do not have standing fans.
And while nine years of announced regular season sellout sat T-Mobile Arena ended this season, the Knights have forged ahead with specialty group nights such as tonight’s Filipino Heritage Night. Las Vegas is known for its enormous Filipino population and VGK have staff working on marketing the NHL franchise to various local groups such as the Latino demographic.
The Filipinos in the crowd watched the Golden Knights score two goals on their first four shots tonight in the first period against the Calgary Flames.
Brett Howden scored 25 seconds into the game with a wicked wrister into the top right corner of the net over Dustin Wolf’s left shoulder. And then Jack Eichel made a Mark Stone-like steal while killing a penalty and zoomed in on Wolf, beating him on the breakaway.
The Flames scored in the second period, but Braeden Bowman restored Vegas’ two-goal advantage going into the third period as the VGK led, 3-1.
Mark Stone padded the lead with two goals from in close and Vegas had a 5-1 lead. Stone scored a power play goal in garbage time for a single period natural hat trick and Vegas was in cruise mode to a 6-2 win.
VGK improved to 7-2-0 on the season, while poor Calgary dropped to 1-6-0.
Scores from around the league:
PSA — Nevada State Law
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