shows all Stanley Cup finals live on TV2 and Areena. The first final match will be seen at 03:00 on Sunday morning Finnish time.
LAS VEGAS. The Vegas Golden Knights’ world-class match event is widely known in North America. The opening ceremonies alone are unmatched in the hockey universe. The show, produced in the spirit of Hollywood, has elements, performers, even animals that are more spectacular than the other.
And, when the viewer imagines the puck already falling on the ice, one more program number starts somewhere.
The music is playing so loud that the socks are about to fall off. Supporters are passionate and vocal.
When you move only a couple of hundred meters from the corners of the new rough arena to the well-known main street of Las Vegas, the Strip, hockey quickly disappears from the street scene.
No flashy ads, no large sheets advertising the starting final series. Although the multipurpose arena and the city’s main street are practically connected to each other, two completely different worlds exist around them.
Listen to the latest episode of the Ika änäri podcast, which previews the Stanley Cup final series:
Gambling games on the main street are completely exceptional tourist chaos almost around the clock. When a journalist suffering from sleep problems caused by the time difference comes down from his hotel room in the early hours of the morning for breakfast, the evening that turned into morning at the casino in the hotel lobby is still in progress.
The gaming machines clink and the drink flows. Las Vegas never sleeps.
However, hockey in Vegas is sleeping. It sleeps practically all the time between games.
Golden Knights fan merchandise is widely sold in shops and stalls, but on the eve of the first final, there is not a single fan shirt to be seen on the evening walk.
– We can be the worst Raiders (NFL) fans, but hockey is really important to us and we are the best at it. We have been waiting for this all our lives and we will support our team until the end. Vegas is a great sports city, came to watch practice with his girlfriend Mike says.
The Strip is for tourists and that’s why you don’t see hockey.
There you can see all kinds of street art, scantily clad men and women selling group photos, and street music. Out of the nearly 40 million annual tourists, few come to the city for hockey – of course more now than before.
You can get a better picture of the connection between the city and the club at the team’s training center, about 30 kilometers from the center.
The small stand of the training center is full to almost every bench. The supporters here are practically always dressed in the jerseys of the home team.
In the training center, you can get a taste of the extraordinary atmosphere in the games: the audience cheers furiously for their own players and gets hugely excited for every spectacular performance.
When you talk to the fans, you quickly realize that the sport has a short tradition in the city. However, the townspeople have really embraced the team, partly because of the massacre in autumn 2017.
– We didn’t know anything about hockey here in the desert until we got the Golden Knights. We didn’t have a single professional team and we’ve practically never won anything. Especially for us who were born and raised here, this is a really big deal, Mike continues.
Vegas is still not Canada, neither is Toronto nor Montreal. Not even New York, Los Angeles or Chicago. Traditions are missing.
At the same time, the same message is coming from all sides: Golden Knights has worked tremendously since the beginning to land among the people.
Golden Knights is constantly involved in different parts of the community, for example in charity projects. However, this is not visible in the hustle and bustle of the central city.
And the supporters do not demand more at this stage. In its first six years, the team has been in the conference finals four times and in the Stanley Cup finals twice.
However, the exceptional atmosphere at home matches tells a lot about how well Vegas has managed to talk to the citizens in a quick time.
When an expansion team sets out to build an NHL club, there are no shortcuts. Vegas is not a particularly impressive hockey market, but even at these latitudes, anything is possible if the club management has enough know-how.
Vegas is a fascinating model club also in terms of combining entertainment and hard sports. Winning the pitcher in the sixth season would be a huge achievement.
– We win because we always find ways to win. I have a lot of faith in it. The club has been working hard for the championship for six years and now it comes, Candy Miller believes.
For six years now, is an amusing phrase when you consider how long some truly traditional clubs have waited. But Vegas is not a gray mass, but something completely different – entertaining and believable at the same time.
And the truth about culture should not be formed through the Strip. The truth is something else.
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