Winning ice hockey comes from the desert. Historic night in Las Vegas

“Playoffs in three, Cup in six”. Three seasons to enter the playoffs, six to win the cup: this was the prediction of the Texan entrepreneur in 2017 Bill Foley to fans of Las Vegas Golden Knightsfledgling ice hockey franchise, the 31st team in the North American top league, the nhl. During the Italian night between Tuesday 13 and Wednesday 14 June the promise was fulfilled: six years after their NHL debut, the Golden Knights conquered the Stanley Cup by defeating the Florida Panthers 4-1 in the playoff final. Game 5, played in Las Vegas, had no history: the Golden Knights led 6-1 at the end of the second period and eventually won 9-3.

The Las Vegas Golden Knights improved the record that belonged to the Philadelphia Flyers, founded in 1967 and champions of the NHL seven years later, in 1974. In reality, the Edmonton Oilers, winners of the Stanley Cup in 1984, would have done better only five years after the their entry into the Nhl, but the Canadian club has existed since 1972 and until 1979 had played in the World Hockey Association, another professional league that had a short life. In the past six seasons, the Golden Knights have made the playoffs five times and in 2018 – in their first year in the NHL – they were defeated in the final by the Washington Capitals. “Most of the parties in Las Vegas, whether it’s a bachelor party or fireworks on the Strip on New Year’s Eve, are for the millions of tourists who visit this incredible city. Tuesday night’s party was for the people of Vegas, and what a party it was,” wrote The Athletic.

For decades, American professional sports have avoided Las Vegas like the plague. It wasn’t a big enough city, its inhabitants have a sort of time zone of their own, as they work especially in the evenings and on weekends, and especially in Nevada sports betting is legal. The United States was burned for a long time by the “Black Sox scandal”, the accusation against eight players of the Chicago White Sox (later banned for life) of having lost the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. During American football games, the NFL even censored commercials inviting viewers to visit Sin City. With the arrival of hockey, everything changed: in 2018 the Las Vegas Aces appeared, the reigning champions of the Women’s NBA, in 2020 the NFL capitulated with the transfer of the Raiders from Oakland to Las Vegas and in the next few years it will also be the turn of baseball, with another transfer from Oakland, that of the Athletics. He misses basketball, but LeBron James himself is moving for that. In November Las Vegas will also host a Formula 1 Grand Prix, while next February it will be the turn of the Super Bowl.

If a desert team winning the ice hockey championship doesn’t seem like enough, then know that it is not the most absurd story to happen in American sports in the last week. Indeed, as mentioned, the Las Vegas Golden Knights defeated the Florida Panthers, the Miami franchise in the final. The same Miami that in the Italian night between Monday 12 and Tuesday 13 June lost, with the Heatalso the NBA final against the Denver Nuggets, always with the overall result of 4-1. It is the fifth time a metropolitan area has lost the NHL and NBA Finals in the same year after Boston (1958), New York (1972), Philadelphia (1980) and San Francisco (precisely with the cities of Oakland and San Jose, in 2016). It had never happened, however, that the two defeats came within 24 hours. Inter fans, think about it: it could have been worse, you could have been from Miami.