Golden Knights, Panthers owners have West Point immersed in Cup Final

LAS VEGAS -- Students and alumni of the United States Military Academy at West Point are united by the unbreakable bond forged from being members of the Corps of Cadets.

During the 2023 Stanley Cup Final, they are united by hockey.

The Florida Panthers and the Vegas Golden Knights are competing for the Cup, and each franchise is owned by graduates of the prestigious 221-year-old academy in West Point, New York.

Panthers owner Vincent Viola received his bachelor's degree from West Point in 1977 and is a graduate of the U.S. Army Airborne, Air Assault, Infantry and Ranger Schools and a former infantry officer in the 101st Airborne Division.

Golden Knights owner Bill Foley earned his bachelor's degree from the academy in 1967 and served in the U.S. Air Force, where he achieved the rank of captain.

Their teams playing in the Cup Final is a source of pride -- and bragging rights -- at the academy and throughout the West Point community.

Vegas leads the best-of-7 series 2-1 with Game 4 at FLA Live Arena in Sunrise, Florida, on Saturday (8 p.m. ET; TNT, TBS, truTV, CBC, SN, TVAS).

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"It's really taken off within the classes," said Jamie Enos, associate director of communications for the West Point Association of Graduates, the alumni association that supports the academy's 55,000 living graduates. "We have a little friendly wager going on between the classes on which team (will win the Stanley Cup), supporting their classes, kind of donating money back and forth based on that."

Army is extra-excited because "We are in it, which is great, and Navy is not, so that's always a little bonus," Enos said. "It's historic having those two owners coming out of the same college setting."

Brian Riley, who has coached Army's NCAA Division I men's hockey team for nearly two decades, said "a lot of people who aren't necessarily hockey fans have become hockey fans at West Point because of the ties obviously with Mr. Foley and Mr. Viola being graduates of the academy."

Even the owners are caught up in the West Point Stanley Cup Fever. The Golden Knights and Panthers announced this past Saturday that Foley and Viola will jointly donate $100,000 to a veterans service organization of the Cup winner's choice.

Foley selected The Folded Flag Foundation to receive a donation from Viola and the Panthers if Vegas wins. Viola chose Gold Star Teen Adventures to receive a donation from Foley and the Golden Knights if Florida wins.

Each nonprofit organization helps children and families of military and law enforcement personal who have died.

"That just shows you what kind of men they are," said retired Army Lt. Gen. Robert L. Caslen, who got to know both owners when he served as the 59th superintendent of West Point from 2013-18. "They're both leaders, officers, incredible entrepreneurs, they're both incredibly generous, loyal, they love their alma mater."

Each has given back to West Point, an institution that they've credited with helping shape them into the people they are today. Foley and his wife pledged $15 million for an athletic center on campus.

He was also a lead donor in the Foley, Enners, Nathe Lacrosse Center that opened in 2016. He shares the center's name with 1st Lt. Ray Enners and 1st Lt. Michael Nathe, both members of West Point's Class of '67 who were killed in action in the Vietnam War in 1968.

Viola was the lead founding donor of the West Point Combating Terrorism Center, which recently celebrated its 20th anniversary, and is a leading donor for the academy's Michie Stadium Preservation Project.

The Panthers and the Golden Knights reflect Viola's and Foley's West Point roots. Shortly after Viola purchased the Panthers in 2013 as chairman and CEO of Virtu Financial, he took the organization's players and staff to the academy.

The Panthers returned for team-building activities and a preseason game against the New Jersey Devils on Oct. 8, 2016, at West Point's Tate Rink. The Panthers defeated the Devils 4-2.

"He put them on the ice and had them practicing but he also mingled them around the Corps of Cadets, mingled them around a lot of the West Point administration," Caslen said of Viola. "He wanted them to understand the character, the culture that's necessary to win. He uses West Point as a foundation of what that culture looks like."

Foley's fondness for West Point is literally weaved into the fabric of the Golden Knights, which joined the NHL in 2017 as an expansion team. Their colors -- black, gold and grey -- closely match Army's color scheme. The Golden Knights parent company is Black Knight Sports and Entertainment.

The Golden Knights and Army settled a trademark dispute in 2018 that paved the way for the team to have the legal right to the name.

Now the team's name and appearance in the Cup Final with Viola's Panthers is the talk of West Point.

"Everyone's real excited to see two very good people have success," said John Heller, a 1984 West Point graduate and retired Army captain who is CEO of Amentum, a government contractor in Maryland. "Now the profile that this brings to West Point as we're trying to recruit the best people to West Point, and to see to highly successful people in such a high profile, we're pretty excited about that."

So is Riley, who plans to use the Golden Knights-Panthers Cup Final as a new recruiting tool for prospective players.

"Now one of my pitches will be to young men, 'Hey, come to West Point and you can own an NHL team,'" he said. "I mean, it's pretty neat when you can sit down with a potential recruit and talk about the fact that Mr. Viola and Mr. Foley, both owners of NHL teams, are graduates of West Point."

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