Hockey in Sin City: My Experience at T-Mobile Arena

The Vegas Golden Knights are in their fifth year of existence, and are continuing to thrive in the desert.

March 19, 2022

Source: Getty Images

Credit to the NHL. The sport struck a major move in 2017 when they became the first professional sports league to establish a team in the city of Las Vegas. Since their initial season in 2017, the Golden Knights have enjoyed plenty of success, qualifying for the playoffs for the first four years of their existence including a Stanley Cup Final appearance in their inaugural season where they lost in 5 games to the Washington Capitals in 2018. According to sportsmediawatch.com, Las Vegas is the 40th biggest market size in the country with 834,000 homes. We can likely thank Wayne Gretzky for the Golden Knights (and even more recently Seattle Kraken) for the creation of these two western expansion teams. Of course, his trade to the Los Angeles Kings is what started serious interest in hockey for western sunbelt states and put hockey literally on the map is this part of the United States.

Vegas Golden Knights History (2017-2022)

*2020-21 COVID-19 shortened season

2017-18	51-24-7 (109 Points)	1st	L, Stanley Cup Finals
2018-19	43-32-7 (93 Points)	3rd	L, First Round
2019-20	39-24-8 (86 Points)	1st	L, Conference Finals
2020-21	40-14-2 (82 Points)	2nd	L, Conference Finals
2021-22	34-26-4 (72 Points)	?	?

When traveling to Las Vegas this past week, seeing a Knights game was right at the top of my priority list. I had heard and seen on tv the stories the last few years of how awesome Vegas' hockey experience is, and what I witnessed did not disappoint.

T-Mobile Arena is a state of the art facility, which is also home to UFC. Outside of the arena, there were plenty of food options and music playing outside while my girlfriend and I waited for the gates to open. Upon entering, the arena was clean and had wide concourses making it easy to move around. We were in Section 206, and could easily see all the action.

The pregame show especially lived up to the hype. The intro was around ten minutes of creativity and hype, as the Knights marketing team did a great job incorporating the city of Las Vegas' culture into the game itself. When the National Anthem was sung, the fans screamed "KNIGHT"! at the night sentence of the anthem which was creative. The arena featured a castle looking structure, which is where the drums were banged while the Knight fought the opposition on the ice and when the players skated out onto the ice for starting lineup intros. The messaging was also very creative on the scoreboard, as statements such as saying the Florida Panthers "travelled west into our lands" was played on the screen. Throughout the game, numerous memes were played including a feature from the office. As the drums were banged, the fans participated in "GO! KNIGHTS! GO!" chants. Knights games are an interesting dynamic, as the arena is half tourists and half fans that are from the greater Las Vegas and Nevada area.

On the ice, the Knights picked up a huge 5-3 victory and 2 points against the Eastern Conferences best team points-wise. They are trying to hold onto the second wild card spot in the west.

I really enjoyed the experience from start to finish and it has made me want to root for the Knights as my Western Conference team. Everything from the experience, to the logo, to the sparkly jersey designs is very cool to me. It will be interesting to see if the Knights can make a run again this season. I would go back in a heartbeat.