How the Golden Knights drove Vegas hockey-mad — and how they plan to keep it that way
how they plan to keep it that wayLAS VEGAS — On May 28, 2018, more than 4,000 Vegas Golden Knights fans flooded Toshiba Plaza, the two-acre space located directly outside T-Mobile Arena, to watch Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final. Rapper Lil Jon attended, in a VGK jersey. Just down Las Vegas Boulevard, the 150-foot Statue of Liberty in front of New York New York hotel was also donned in VGK gear.Las Vegas is home to more than 600,000 residents and generally speaking, they avoid the Strip like the plague. The community holds a sense of pride and ownership in it, of course, but as far as actually spending time there — no thanks. Too expensive. Too much traffic. Too many tourists.During Game 1 of the Final, however, the Las Vegas Strip belonged to the locals. The city’s beloved Knights joined the 1967-68 St. Louis Blues as the only true expansion team in the history of sports to reach a championship round in its first year of existence. And the magic continued that night, as the Knights defeated the Washington Capitals 6-4 inside T-Mobile Arena.That night proved a certain point, one that had been up for debate before the Knights’ inaugural season. It proved hockey could work in the desert. The entire scene showed that yes, it unequivocally could.Now, as the city, the team and the sport of hockey itself moves forward in this newfound kinship in the desert, the question is no longer “Can hockey work here?” It’s “Will it always continue to work here?””There’s no question it has worked. It has worked better than anyone could have ever dreamed,” said lifelong Vegas resident and ESPN radio personality Adam Hill. “But now the tests will come. First, with the Raiders coming in 2020. The NFL sucks so much attention and energy away from everything else. Media resources are dedicated to it. The NFL is king. How will it do against that?”And then, how will this town react when the Knights are finally not good? It happens to everyone. Sports are cyclical, and at some point they are not going to be an elite team. What then?”Darren Eliot didn’t set out to get a “doctorate” in nontraditional hockey markets. His career just worked out that way.Eliot, the Vegas Golden Knights’ vice president of hockey programming and facility operations, played in the NHL from 1984-85 to 1988-89, primarily for the warm-weather market Los Angeles Kings. In his post-playing days, he’s worked in two nontraditional hockey markets: Atlanta and Las Vegas.In all his years in the game, Eliot says he has never witnessed a bond between a city and its team like the one that currently exists in Las Vegas. It’s a reciprocal love, and a unique one in sports.”I’ve seen an extreme and extremely rare love affair between the fan base and the hockey team,” Eliot said. “And what’s taken me aback is this group of fans who say, ‘OK, this is our team. I don’t know anything about hockey, but I’m gearing up with my VGK attire and I’m learning about the sport.'”Something struck me as soon as I got here one year ago. The bars, they play the games with the sound on. That doesn’t happen across the country. Yes, the game is on, but other stuff is going on. Here, it’s the focal point. We’ll routinely get 100 fans to attend our practices. On game night, there are more people in their seats for the puck drop than any team I’ve ever seen.”
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