History was made just before 8 p.m. on Oct. 10 at T-Mobile Arena.
Twenty-two Vegas Golden Knights players stood arm in arm as they watched the Stanley Cup Champions banner that commemorates the team’s first championship rise to the rafters.
“We’re the Vegas Golden Knights. It’s Las Vegas. We owed it to our fans to take something as simple as a banner ceremony and one-up it,” said Vice President & Executive Producer of Entertainment & Production Andrew Abrams. “We definitely wanted to take it to the next level as we do with everything.”
The ceremony combined the history of the team with numerous Vegas elements. The pregame show started with the Golden Knight skating toward the stone placed at center ice. He placed the sword in the stone, eliciting an explosion of memories from the past six seasons. Adding the element of the sword and stone was especially designed to call back to the Golden Knights’ inaugural season.
Memories exploded from out of the stone in both ice projection and video on Knight Tron. Key moments from team history resurfaced as fans were reminded of the day Vegas was awarded an expansion team. The story of the Golden Knights continued with memories of the expansion draft, Deryk Engelland’s speech after October 1, Mark Stone being named captain, Jack Eichel joining the team, and Bruce Cassidy being named head coach. Recent achievements like Adin Hill’s stick save in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup and Mark Stone’s hat trick in Game 5 drew roars from the crowd as Vegas fans looked back with pride on the team’s championship.
As those memories come to a close like the end of a storybook, the Golden Knight pulled the sword from the stone and pointed it toward the gold helmet in front of the Vegas bench.
As he pointed at the helmet, the Vegas Golden Knights emerged onto the ice.
Amid the loud cheers from 18,724 fans, captain Mark Stone skated out with the Stanley Cup as the cheers swelled. He and the team took a lap around the ice before Stone placed the Cup next to a giant slot machine. Stone pulled the lever and, as luck would have it, three Stanley Cups appeared on the screen to trigger the ultimate jackpot.
The banner rose from the slot machine and the golden first words the team saw were “2023 Stanley Cup Champions.” As the banner continued its ascent, the Stanley Cup with the Golden Knights logo upon it was revealed.
“It was cool seeing the banner go up,” said goaltender Adin Hill. “I haven’t seen a banner with that much detail on it before. I kind of had zero expectations for the ceremony and I didn’t expect it to be that detailed and nice, so it was pretty cool.”
The ceremony may have only been 11 minutes long, but months of planning went into it.
When Vegas won Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final on June 13, Vice President & Executive Producer of Entertainment & Production Andrew Abrams knew that the banner raising “couldn’t just be another ceremony.”
“We wanted it to be a very Vegas Golden Knights celebration,” Abrams said. “We came up with the idea of the slot machine box during playoffs and when we won, it started to become a reality.”
In collaboration with Water FX, the same company that created the dragon box and castle, production was able to bring to life the design the team had come up with months before.
“The slot machine was freaking cool,” Cassidy said. “I couldn’t see it at first. You’re going through scenarios in your head for the actual game, then I looked over. It was really neat. Once again, they’ve done a great job here.”
The production team credits the success of the pregame show and banner raising to the teamwork and cooperation of all who were involved.
“We couldn’t be happier with how it turned out,” Abrams said. “The end product of what the fans see is definitely the collaboration among different business units in the organization and hundreds of others. We’re incredibly lucky to have such skilled and passionate individuals to execute at the level that we ask.”
Fans were in awe but so were many of the players.
“It was an emotional moment for sure,” said William Karlsson. “It was a happy moment, especially when they started playing The Killers’ ‘Shot at the Night.’ It definitely brought goosebumps.”
While this banner raising ceremony is certainly one for the books, it’s not the first banner Vegas has raised.
Since the team’s inaugural season, adding banners to the rafters has been a common thing for the Golden Knights. With Pacific Division Championships and the team’s 2017-18 Western Conference Championship, Vegas had multiple banners of accomplishment hung in the rafters next to the Vegas Strong banner that honors the victims of October 1, 2017. While the 2023 Stanley Cup banner completes the set, it also serves as motivation for the team to win again and hang another one next to it.
“It’s some of the most fun hockey that we’ve ever played,” said Stone. “But it gives us a sense of urgency because we want to get back there.”
