Golden Knights print season-ticket names on ice for first season

The Vegas Golden Knights are days away from their inaugural season opener on Oct. 10. It’s going to be a massive celebration for the team and its fans, which worked together to make this NHL expansion dream come true.

The Golden Knights have decided to do something symbolically to solidify that relationship.

We’re talking solid as a block of ice.

The Knights revealed on Monday that they’re freezing the names of their first season-ticket holders inside the home ice at T-Mobile Arena.

Giant scrolls of names were laid out and then frozen over on the rink. It appears from this video released by the team that they were then painted over with the blue lines. (We emailed the Knights for clarification.)

Now, they’re not the first to do this, as the San Jose Sharks have also placed names under the ice.

But the most touching thing about this gesture is that many of those fans helped make the case that Las Vegas deserved an NHL team.

Remember that Vegas wasn’t a sure bet with the Board of Governors – the team had to show that there was a fan base in the city hungry for hockey. So the fans surpassed every season-ticket benchmark established, showing the NHL and any doubters that it was a viable market, even before the casinos and corporate ticket sales flooded in.

There’s a kinship between every expansion team and their fans, a notion that they’re in it together through the bumpy start, and for the long haul. We’ve just never seen it captured quite like this.

Vegas is fun. Glad to have them.

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Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.