SEATTLE -- When Keegan Kolesar was playing junior hockey for the Seattle Thunderbirds, he would go watch Seattle Mariners baseball games at what is now T-Mobile Park. The Vegas Golden Knights forward never imagined those two worlds would ever intersect.
As Kolesar returns to the city he called home from 2013-17 to take part in the 2024 Discover NHL Winter Classic on Monday against the Seattle Kraken at T-Mobile Park (3 p.m. ET; MAX, TruTV, TNT, SN, TVAS), the growth of hockey in the Pacific Northwest is not lost on him.
“My first time here I never thought I'll play a game outdoors in a baseball stadium or even see a game played here,” said Kolesar. “It's cool to see how far hockey's come in this city.”
T-Mobile Park is sold out to watch a game that features the two most recent NHL expansion teams, with close to 47,000 people expected to attend. That includes standing-room only tickets for a Seattle market that joined the League in 2021 and a Kraken team that qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time last season, advancing to the second round.
“They're not coming to hockey games for the $2 beer and $2 hot dogs anymore,” Kolesar said, a reference to “Toonie Tuesday” games with the Thunderbirds. “It's really cool to see how passionate sports fans are here. It's a passionate fan base and it's awesome to see hockey taking a big step.”
This is the first outdoor game for the Kraken (14-14-9) and the second for the Golden Knights (22-10-5), who joined the NHL in 2017 and won the Stanley Cup for the first time last season. Vegas played the Colorado Avalanche in the NHL Outdoors at Lake Tahoe in 2021, but there were no fans because of the COVID-19 pandemic, so this will be the Golden Knights' first full-stadium game experience.
"Whenever you play outdoors, it’s the purest form of the game,” said Vegas forward Jack Eichel.
This is the second NHL outdoor game for Eichel, who played for the Buffalo Sabres against the New York Rangers in the 2018 Winter Classic at Citi Field in New York City. For Eichel, the Winter Classic takes him back to playing outside on a pond near his boyhood home of North Chelmsford, Massachusetts, 40 minutes Northwest of Boston, often while wearing a baby blue Sidney Crosby Pittsburgh Penguins jersey and matching toque from the first ever Winter Classic in 2008.
“When you start playing outside you get different uniforms on, you get some eye black and I'm sure it brings back a lot of memories for guys about growing up playing on ponds in their neighborhoods or towns,” Eichel said. “We’ve got a lot of western Canadian guys, so I'm sure they've played some outdoor hockey. I feel like every kid has spent some time playing on the pond and obviously growing up watching the Winter Classic, so getting the opportunity to play in a game like this is pretty awesome.”
Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy wants his players to soak in that experience, which included having family join them for a skate at T-Mobile Park after they practiced on Sunday.
“You're mixing your family with your hockey family, so these are special moments,” Cassidy said. “I tried to tell the guys to take it all in. It's unique and you should enjoy it and make sure your family enjoys it. It's okay to let yourself go because you don't get to do this all the time.”
Once the puck drops on Monday, he expects their championship pedigree to take over.
“We're a very, very competitive group and I think our guys, the bigger the game, I think they get a little more juices going into it, so I think that's how we will handle it knowing our group,” Cassidy said. “They'll just want to win because of the stage they are on.”
That includes Kolesar, even if it’s a stage he never imagined playing on in Seattle.
