The expansion Vegas Golden Knights will host their first home game ever at T-Mobile Arena Tuesday and it has the makings to be a very emotional and memorable night.
The Coyotes-Golden Knights game will be one of the biggest events held in the city since the mass shooting that resulted in the death of 58 people and over 400 people injured. The Vegas Golden Knights plan to honor the victims of the shooting and the first responders all night. One of their first gestures was a change to the dasher boards.
For the home opener only, the Vegas Golden Knights will have no advertisements and instead will have a repeating black and gold hashtag of #VegasStrong all around the rink.
There won't be any advertisements on the boards tonight. Instead, our boards will reflect who we are. #VegasStrong pic.twitter.com/29pL7wmMwJ
— Vegas Golden Knights (@GoldenKnights) October 10, 2017
Vegas Golden Knights assistant GM Kelly McCrimmon elaborated on the decision while speaking to Sportsnet radio this morning.
“Based on some really nice things to recognize what happened, again this will be a lot about the first responders and the survivors that will be on hand, all of the sponsors for tonight’s game very willingly agreed to have all of the dasher boards to be replaced with VEGASSTRONG,” McCrimmon said to Sportsnet. “So for this game tonight all of the arena boards tonight will be done up as VEGASSTRONG. I believe puck drop is 7:40 local time and I think the opening ceremonies start a quarter after 7. So there’s going to be a real moving tribute for everything that’s gone on. As I said earlier in the conversation here, it’ll be a pretty somber moment and yet one that’s important for our organization to be a part of.”
On top of the boards change and pregame ceremony, the team will also have a “member of the Route 91 Harvest Festival,” the site of the tragic shooting, sing the national anthem along with 14 other members from the festival.
Via the Golden Knights:
NATIONAL ANTHEM (Subject to change)
The national anthem at Tuesday’s game will be led by a member of the Route 91 Harvest Festival Team, the music festival that was the site of Sunday’s tragic shooting. He will be joined in by 14 other members of the Harvest Festival Team, all of whom were at the event on Sunday and acted with great courage helping those injured and assisting first responders with their efforts.”
The team is also hosting a fan march from the Vegas Strip to the arena.
There will be a fan march from the New York-New York Hotel to @TMobileArena, to open the doors for the first time, at 4:45. pic.twitter.com/QxiwRyntIG
— Vegas Golden Knights (@GoldenKnights) October 9, 2017
Photos: @GoldenKnights
