Guest Post: Think Before You Judge

Mickey B, I am right there with you. You’ve captured my exact feelings. I will still be there for nearly every game, having committed to season seats for 5 years, so I am, and will continue to be, supporting the team with with pocket book. I too am extremely happy to have the NHL in my backyard. I truly thank Foley for making that happen. But having said that, since this won’t be number one team, despite being absolutely prepared to shed/drop down what was going to be my old team (but will now continue to remain my team), not because of any disloyalty, but to be fully immersed in this one, I just can’t. I guess in a lot of ways it is like falling in love or having a true friendship/lifelong bond with someone. . . . . it is either there or it isn’t. No matter what you might want to feel, if the feeling isn’t there, then it just isn’t there.

As stupid as it sounds, admittedly using a very poor analogy, I really wanted this franchise to be my best buddy, but it is just going to be an acquaintance and someone I will just be hanging out with. The spark just isn’t going to be there the way I was hoping. I already know that and I really wish it wasn’t going to be this way, but I know in my heart of hearts that it will be. This is why I am feeling that sense of what could have been.

The winning and the losing are truly never going to matter to me as to they do with my old team, my one and only still, if you will, and I wish that just wasn’t the case. The opportunity was there for the connection, as I think it was for you as well, but that door was shut. I didn’t want it to be, but it just will be. Again, it is never about the losing with me. I am as loyal as they come, which is why, as I stated in one of my other posts, I feel so strongly that the connection to this team has to be something akin to a high school or college team, where support is always there regardless of record.

Even though I have moved on, so to speak, realizing that its just never going to be there for me with this team, I feel for those that can still have that spark ignited in them. It is why I am hoping that at some point in the very near future Foley can bridge the chasm that exists because of the name debacle. I truly think the compromise is Las Vegas Knights, despite all the BS about London having a trademark in Canada, blah, blah, blah. No one is going to convince me that the opportunity is not there to still make this happen. We all know that once Black Knights wasn’t going to happen, Foley immediately turned to Golden Knights to honor the Army. The idea that it was ever going to be anything else is just laughable. Everything else was just a spin and charade after that. He didn’t even contact London to even discussed just being the Knights, yet said it was going to be uneconomical (again without even asking at all), while I remember also being quoted as saying that just being the Knights was too boring and he needed an adjective in front of it.

There is absolutely no shame whatsoever in admitting that something didn’t go as planned, and then taking steps to change it. There is shame, however, in simply digging one’s heals in and trying to hammer a square peg into round whole and pretending that it fits like a glove. Again, I think the solution is right in front of his eyes. I just hope that someone, anyone, is able to get him to see that a solution exists and convince him to change it. If he doesn’t now, or lets say next season (year two), then it will likely just continue to piss people off even more if a rebranding happens in 5 or 10 years, just as it will continue to piss me off (again in the context of the disappointment of what could have been) that the LAS is missing every time that the team will be announced as they are taking the ice by the PA announcer. . . . . . .and every time that I look on NHL.com and see that they are not listed where they should be amongst the other teams because the reference to the first name of the city for the organization starts with a V and not an L . . . . . .just as every time I read an article that will still refer to them as the LAS Vegas Golden Knights, when we all know that is factually incorrect . . . . . . and every time that I continue to hear Foley say “Las Vegas” with the words “Well . . . . we did it Las Vegas” still echoing in my head in what was then a truly magical day for me. Ohhhh, what almost was.

The next time I see A Fan, I’m going to buy him a cold Labatt Blue. (What do you mean they don’t sell that at T-Mobile?)

Murrayyyyy, I will take my shot at giving you my POV and why leaving off the LAS is a big deal to me, and why I think it is for others that are very bothered by it. Just to get it out the way, the Golden is not nearly as big a deal to me as the missing LAS.

As to your using Tampa versus Tampa Bay as an example, the region is known as Tampa Bay or the Bay Area because of the large population that also lives in St. Petersburg. Tampa Bay encompasses both. From what I understand this is the same kind of thing that exists with the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, which is why all their teams use the State name, not an individual city. As to New England versus Boston, New England is the region because of how many states are clustered together. As to the Warriors using Golden State, I believe that it was the same decision given that you have Oakland and San Francisco sharing one basketball team. As to why the Hurricanes used Carolina, it is to represent the Carolinas, North and South, which is a common reference to the region, just as the Dakotas are used. Its an inclusive reference, not an exclusive reference. So my point being these names, I believe, are all used as ways of compromise to ensure that no one in the region is feeling alienated, but rather feels included and not left out. Which brings me to why the term “Vegas” on its own has such a visceral dislike to some, including me.

I am certainly no expert on those other areas that you mentioned, but I don’t think that those names used cause any negative reaction to anyone in those regions. Whereas, the reference to “Vegas” alone does elicit a very negative reaction to some that live in the Valley. I myself always say “Las Vegas” or “LV”, but never just “Vegas”. Why? Because that term represents the party/degenerate attitude that goes along with it. It represents the tourist element in the sense of “I am going to Vegas to let loose and get wasted/get F’ed up”.

As was written by a guest article a week or two ago, I live in Las Vegas and not Vegas. As Eric, the best f’n popcorn maker in the world, explained in a voice message used by Ken and Jason in their podcast after the name reveal (which sums all of my feelings up perfectly), “Vegas” connotes frat boys chasing after strippers, coked out of their mind, and bacholorette parties of drunk girls getting wild and crazy on the Strip (I am paraphrasing what Eric essentially said). It is the “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas mentality”, which translates to come here to be a gigantic tool, and then go back to acting normal and responsible wherever it was that you came from. For those of us that avoid the Strip, and don’t act with that type of mentality, those of us who work standard jobs, live in standard homes, and live standard lives, we say that we live in Las Vegas, because to us we don’t want to be associated with that mentality/image/stereotype. You know the stereotype that if we live in “Vegas” we must be gambling and alcoholic degenerates. You know the perception that NHL players that live here are going to have a really hard time staying away from all of the “distractions” that Vegas has to offer (read some of the earlier stuff that Ken and Dana wrote very early on about how that idiotic perception does anger some of us). You know the perception that the “Vegas” NHL team is going to have the best home record in the NHL because all of the visiting teams will be getting wasted out of their minds until 8 in the morning if they should happen to arrive here the night before. Case in point, Gord Miller said/intimated this exact thing during the Kings/Pens game last night, when discussing the expansion draft and the fact that MA Fleury might end up here/slash the Pens will need to figure out a way to get rid of Fleury. You know the perception that the Raiders will have an impossible time keeping their players out of trouble if/when they move here (in a Mercury News article yesterday). You know the perception of how nobody lives in “Vegas” and how is an NHL team and NFL team going to be supported (despite there being 2.2 mm in the metro area). You know the perception that nobody in hear works a regular job in a regular field.

Soooo. . . . . what does the “Vegas” perception/connotation mean to me? Well it means constantly having to defend living in a place that actually is a very normal place to live. A place that has schools, hospitals, courts, parks, ball fields, ice rinks, etc. just like every other F’N big city/metro area in America. It means having to constantly get the feeling of if you don’t live here you have no f’n idea of what you are talking about and should just stop talking. It means feeling like somehow the sports world views us as second class citizens as though WE have to prove that we should have the right to prove that we are worthy of the major leagues.

Thats what not have those three little (inconsequential to some) letters (the “The”) means to me, and I think many others, especially those that feel the need to defend the honor of the City, a place that they feel is worthy of defending. Its why I can’t just “get over it”.

Just my two cents.
(Sorry for the typos)

Hard to read past you example of Washington being a state and should add DC. You have looked at a map lately I assume…I hope.