Emotional Start Sets Golden Knights Up For A Chance At Playoff Run

The text came through from my friend from Newport Beach at 11 p.m. I still have it. It read "are you ok there, buddy?" It was 11 pm on Sunday, Oct. 1. My TV was off so I didn't understand it. I thought it was odd. I replied "yeah, why?" He said "are you watching TV?"
I wasn't. My partner Shane Hnidy and I had driven by Mandalay Bay three hours before following our exhibition game. We stopped for a beer in Summerlin, headed home and I had dozed off on the couch watching 60 Minutes. I awoke and went upstairs.
From the bedroom of my home I can see the south end of the Vegas strip. The High Roller Wheel, the outline of the New York-New York skyline. The roof of T-Mobile Arena. And Mandalay Bay. I turned on the TV and kept looking back and forth between the screen and Mandalay Bay in the distance. And like everyone else I couldn't believe my eyes. I had only been in Vegas three weeks. The next day, not knowing what else to do, I went to the Golden Knights office. And it brought me right back to the Boston Marathon bombings of 2013. The stunned silence, people walking around in a daze. I didn't stay long. The season opener was four days away and I felt terrible for all the people who had been working for the team a lot longer than me. Now, four days before the first game in team history and eight days before the home opener, the entire staff and Vegas community was dealing with an incredible tragedy.
But I knew from my experience 4.5 years earlier that sports could help. Even if it was only for two hours a day, it could give people something else to focus on, something fun, a bit of a distraction. And from the first game in Dallas to the last regular season game in Calgary, that thought has been somewhere in my mind. People watch games for a release, a temporary reprieve from day-to-day life. And therefore, my approach all season has been "this should be fun." The real world already contains enough pain for people.

And Shane and I have had a blast. Our chemistry seemed instant. The first game we called together was an exhibition game in Vancouver in mid-September. Although we'd know each other for a while (Shane was a defenseman on the Bruins' Stanley Cup team in 2011 and I was calling the games on the radio), we had never sat next to each other in a booth and called a single second of a game. After that first period in Vancouver, we looked at each other and thought "we may have something here."
We have similar senses of humor. He is an extremely sharp dresser (I call it the Hnidy Collection) and the good taste of his "costumes" has rubbed off on me. And he tolerates my constant below average singing. I wish you could see our rehearsals for each telecast. They are usually dreadful. But for me, it's a way of getting the nerves out. And by the time we're on TV for real, it's dramatically better. If you saw our rehearsals you'd agree there's nowhere to go but up!
The incredible success of the team has taken everyone by surprise. I thought they'd be good. But there's a significant difference between being good and winning the Pacific Division. They built momentum early, winning eight of the first nine games, and really never looked back. Missing Marc-Andre Fleury for two months could've sunk the ship. But it didn't. They emerged with their heads well above water and ran off a 12-0-1 stretch in December. They moved into first place two days before Christmas and never left.
Shea Theodore won a game against Tampa Bay with 2.3 seconds left and nearly took the roof off T-Mobile. William Karlsson had two hat tricks at home on his way to 43 goals for the season (including one between his own legs) and in the final regular season home game, the Golden Knights honored the 58 souls that we lost Oct. 1.
And along the way they set the standard for every expansion team to come.
Nothing in sports compares to playoff hockey. The intensity of every game is magnified. The price players pay to win is beyond belief. The excitement of an overtime game is unmatched, and the opportunity to win a Stanley Cup doesn't come around every year. Before their most recent back-to-back Cups, the Pittsburgh Penguins also won two in a row in 1991 and '92. After 1992, they didn't win it again for 17 years. That's a long time.
But the Golden Knights have a legitimate chance. You don't win 51 games by accident. Their speed is unmatched by most teams in the league. Health is always paramount, as is good fortune. But they have a chance. A real one. And they play in front of one of the most passionate fans bases in the NHL. Every home game during the regular season felt like a playoff game. Now, the playoff games start for real.