Golden Knights win the hearts of Vegas

LAS VEGAS – Mixed into the light-brown walls, alongside a signed Pat Benatar record and a close-up shot of Jim Morrison and a poster of Led Zeppelin standing by a plane, was a single piece of sports memorabilia.

It was a small, black Vegas Golden Knights flag, and only stood out because it represented an ice hockey team inside a classic rock radio booth in the middle of a desert. Ken Johnson and Steph MacKenzie readied for the next segment of their show, played on 97.1 "The Point," as 8:30 a.m. neared in Las Vegas this past Friday. Dan D'Uva, their next guest and the Golden Knights' radio broadcaster, sat across the studio and scratched his thick playoff beard.

"Dan, I need to know before the break ends," started MacKenzie, craning her neck to lock eyes with D'Uva between two computer monitors. "What in the world is happening with this hockey team?"

That has been a recurring question since June 2016, when the NHL decided to put its 31st franchise in Las Vegas. It was asked as the Golden Knights — an expansion team made up of cast-off players from across the league — won 51 games in their inaugural regular season. It was asked as they zipped through the playoffs and into a Stanley Cup Final matchup with the Washington Capitals starting Monday. And now MacKenzie asked how the Golden Knights, a team of misfits predicted to struggle, grew into a massive cultural phenomenon in such a transient town.

The answer, in many ways, transcends the improbability of their on-ice success. The Golden Knights lifted Vegas after a tragic shooting in October and became a constant for people used to rotating acts. Vegas did not have a major league sports franchise before the Golden Knights, and has always shared its defining civic institutions with the rest of the world. Bachelor parties last two or three days. Gamblers come and go. Resorts overflow on the weekends and empty out by Monday morning. But a growing population has worked to shed the "Sin City" label, settled and started families, and struggled to self-identify.

Then Vegas, built on temptation and the hollow promise of victory, got a winner to call its own.

"Everyone who is not from here just thinks of Vegas as the Strip," said Joe Schoenmann, a local journalist who now anchors "State of Nevada" on KNPR radio. "But it's an actual real place. It's maturing. It's one of the newest big cities in the country and the Golden Knights are another stage of that growth."

On Oct. 1, 2017, nine days before the Golden Knights' first home game, bullets flew over the Strip and into a grassy concert venue across from the Mandalay Bay hotel, killing 58 people and injuring around 850. Thousands of others, attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival, were left shocked and shaken by the deadliest mass shooting by an individual in United States history.

Vegas's new hockey team jumped into action, as the players visited victims in the hospital, met with first responders and donated food and drinks to those participating in blood drives. Then came opening night, the team's first chance to address a city in mourning inside T-Mobile Arena, just a half-mile from where the tragedy took place.

The Golden Knights held a 58-second moment of silence to honor the 58 victims. The name of each victim was projected onto the ice. Then defenseman Deryk Engelland, a 36-year-old who started his family in Vegas, spoke slowly into a microphone as a silent, sellout crowd stood around him.

"Like most of you, I am proud to call Las Vegas home," Engelland began beneath a spotlight, and the arena broke into a booming cheer.

"To the families and friends of the victims, know that we'll do everything we can to help you and our city heal," he continued. "We are Vegas strong."

They were representing a city that, more than ever, needed something to lean on. In those moments, after Engelland skated away from center ice and a puck was dropped in his place, a trust was formed.

"What they did in the aftermath of the October 1 shooting, that really linked Vegas with the Knights," said Andrew Lunsford, a northern Virginia native who moved here 20 years ago and was one of the team's first season-ticket holders. "It showed that they weren't just here to exploit the city and leave like everybody else. They were going to be about Vegas, and that is all people here have ever wanted."

So now, what is happening?

D'Uva had to think hard about MacKenzie's question inside the radio station Friday. Everyone has. The Golden Knights' run to this point can be explained in broad hockey strokes, with their speed and opportunistic scoring and shutdown goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, but their grip on Las Vegas extends past all that, away from logic or reason, into the psyche of a self-conscious city.

"What makes this really special is how the community has embraced this team," said D'Uva once the they were back on air, his voice pumping into cars all over town. "Right from the start of training camp."

Except most of the Golden Knights weren't even at the facility yet. They were not scheduled to take the ice for another 90 minutes. Yet here were their fans bobbing to music played by a deejay, waiting for a slim chance to squeeze into the rink, fine with wagering against the odds.

"It's been pretty crazy all throughout the year," Golden Knights forward James Neal said Saturday. "And when you win and you have success it helps, but I think with what happened on October 1 and the way the city was hurting, for us we just tried to do anything possible to help people out and that brought us even tighter to the city and made us play for a little more than ourselves and our team."

Next comes the Golden Knights' shot at the Stanley Cup, but not before this practice in front of a capacity crowd. As players trickled out of the locker room just after 10:30 a.m., each getting a bigger ovation than the one before, a woman's voice came over the loudspeaker and said the doors were officially closed. That got a ringing ovation, too. Hundreds of people were still in line and they rushed to the glass window at the front of the rink, they climbed onto picnic tables in the lobby, they twisted their heads for a glimpse, however brief or obstructed, of their Golden Knights.

Moments later, center William Karlsson drifted onto the ice and waved his arms. The fans wailed. He waved them again, demanding they scream louder, and the noise crescendoed until kids' faces were red and adults were jumping on the concrete bleachers and the facility sounded like the inside of a crashing wave.