Las Vegas Sports Feast Over Four Days: Aces, VGK, UNLV, Raiders Each Play Big Games From Thursday to Sunday In Vegas
By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — It will be a spine-tingling four days of games involving four Las Vegas sports teams.
The WNBA Las Vegas Aces play their game of the year until now Thursday when the Aces and Indiana Fever play a winner-takes-all first-round playoff Game 3 at Michelob Ultra Arena Thursday.
On Friday, the NHL Vegas Golden Knights host the Anaheim Ducks, the upstart division team that extended the VGK to six games in the Stanley Cup Playoffs before Vegas won the series to move into the conference final last spring.
Then Saturday it’s college football’s Cal vs UNLV at Allegiant Stadium, where the 2-2 Rebels try to win their second game in a row in a season of high expectations.
And then the NFL Las Vegas Raiders take on their division rival, the Kansas City Chiefs, after the domed football stadium is converted from its UNLV artificial turf to the Raiders’ natural grass tray for a high-stakes Sunday pro football showdown.
Las Vegas has hosted an NFL Super Bowl, boxing matches with global appeal and lots of big-league car races but this is an amazing four-day stretch where four Las Vegas sports teams are hosting top-flight games with lots of local interest here in Vegas and across the U.S.
On Tuesday, the Aces lost to Indiana in Game 2 of the Best-of-3 series after Las Vegas routed the Fever in Game 1 here in Las Vegas Sunday.
Also on Tuesday, the Golden Knights opened their tenth season at home with a 5-2 win over a weak Chicago Blackhawks team.
The opposition should get much stronger Friday when the Ducks arrive at T-Mobile Arena.
In last season’s playoffs, the Ducks and Golden Knights were squared off at two games apiece before Vegas won Games 5 and 6 to knock out Anaheim.
UNLV started the season with high hopes and even dreams of making the college football playoff 12-team tournament, with a goal of even making it to the title game being hosted by Allegiant Stadium in January.
But after losses to Memphis at home and getting blasted by North Texas on the road, the Rebels are now focused on playing Cal of the ACC Saturday.
The Raiders-Chiefs game Sunday matches two teams with 3-0 records.
The Raiders have relied on hot quarterback play by veteran Kirk Cousins to defeat the Dolphins at home and the Chargers and Saints on the road to win their first three games — a win total that matches all the wins from last season when the Silver & Black suffered through a miserable 3-14 campaign.
Cousins is the first quarterback in NFL history to have three touchdown passes in his first three games
with a team.
“I go back to kind of I don’t get three touchdown passes in these games without our defense getting the ball back to us, giving us short fields, giving us extra possessions. I think our coaches have designed plays that have gotten people open and given us those opportunities. Players have gotten open themselves and done their part and made plays,” Cousins said this week.
“So, it’s really a combination of a lot of factors. Certainly, I got to do my job, my part, but that’s really all it is. It’s just a part of it. And any notable accomplishments or whatever you want to call them, whether it’s Brock [Bowers] being AFC Offensive Player of the Week, or last week Zeke [Hezekiah Masses] was Defensive Player of the Week.”
New head coach Klint Kubiak and his ultra-serious-minded approach have instilled rock-solid offensive play and a spirit on defense that has resulted in sacks from the defensive line and interceptions from the defensive backfield.
Kubiak has downplayed any “playoff atmosphere” talk for Sunday’s game: “I think our team, we take every game in that same manner. Every game is a one-game Super Bowl and is the best of the best competing against each other every week. So, this should be no different than Week 1 or Week 17.”
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