St. Louis Blues praise Wichita crowd; first NHL game in city history deemed success

Wichita made a successful debut hosting the first NHL game in the city’s history on Saturday, which made officials confident it won’t be the city’s last professional hockey showcase.

A crowd of 8,475 in Intrust Bank Arena was treated to an entertaining and high-scoring contest, a 5-4 victory by the St. Louis Blues over the Arizona Coyotes on Saturday in each team’s first exhibition game of the 2022-23 season.

The game-day experience seemed to satisfy both hockey die-hards and casual fans alike, but just as importantly, the coordinated efforts of G1 Sports & Entertainment, the local group that made the game a reality and the event staffs of the Wichita Thunder and Intrust Bank Arena made a strong impression on the near 100 front-office personnel, staff members, coaches and players from the two NHL teams who made the trip to Wichita.

“The fans here were great and the rink was great,” Blues goalie Jordan Binnington, who started between the pipes in Wichita, told The Eagle. “We enjoyed our time here. Overall, it was a great experience.”

“The atmosphere was really good,” Blues coach Craig Berube added. “We had great support from the fans here. It was awesome.”

Joel T. Lomurno, the Thunder general manager, was beaming after the game in the bowels of Intrust Bank Arena, giddy from the reviews that were rolling in from the NHL visitors.

“I’ve overheard a lot of people say that the Blues were really impressed by how cool this building is,” Lomurno said. “I think everyone from top to bottom, the fans, the building, G1, the teams is really pleased with how everything went.

“There’s certainly potential to keep this thing going.”

After months of preparation for the event, G1 Sports & Entertainment president Brian Hargrove was thrilled with how Saturday night transpired: the event was well-run, drew a good crowd, the game itself was compelling and both NHL clubs gave their stamp of approval.

“I just got done talking with both teams and they’re both already talking about wanting to come back here again next year,” Hargrove said. “We’ll have to have those discussions if we want the same game or if we should look at different teams. But there’s definitely a lot of excitement about coming back again.”

A pleasant surprise for organizers was the number of hockey jerseys in the crowd, a sign that Wichita is willing to embrace professional hockey. Blues’ jerseys were most popular, perhaps second only to hometown Thunder jerseys, as fans were also spotted in jerseys of the Arizona Coyotes, Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars, Chicago Blackhawks, Boston Bruins, Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings.

Binnington, the starting goalie on the 2019 Blues team that won the Stanley Cup championship, was by far the highest-profile player who made the trip to Wichita. What the game lacked in star power on the ice was made up for by a thrilling game that featured nine combined goals, two lead changes in the third period and a shootout agreed upon by both teams regardless of the final score.

Wichita hockey fan Craig Brewer, who has held season tickets for the Thunder for the past two decades, said the NHL experience in Wichita lived up to his expectations. He’s hopeful that some new hockey fans were hooked in Wichita on Saturday.

It was the first time an NHL game has been played in the area since Oct. 2, 1980 when the Edmonton Oilers and Colorado Avalanche played at the Kansas Coliseum in Park City.

“When you’ve gone to Thunder games at Intrust and the Coliseum the last 20 years, you get to know most of the hockey fans in town,” Brewer said. “We were in our section (Saturday) and we saw a whole bunch of new faces that we’ve never seen before. It was a great crowd, a great atmosphere and a high-scoring game. A lot of the crowd had never experienced NHL hockey before, so they got to see a great game.”

As expected, Wichita proved to be a pro-Blues crowd — evident before the puck even dropped when the crowd drowned out the final words of Wichita native Chris Mann’s rendition of the national anthem with “home of the Blues!”

The party began within the game’s first two minutes when St. Louis forward Jake Neighbours scored a goal, as Wichita fans delighted in taking part of the post-goal ritual chant for the Blues.

“It was pretty loud in there,” said St. Louis forward Logan Brown, who scored two goals, including the game-winner in the third period. “A lot more than I expected. It was fun to be here.

“Seems like a great city. Driving in (from the airport), we didn’t see much, but the facilities are great here and they’ve got good hockey fans.”

Will a successful debut be enough to convince the NHL to return to Wichita?

It’s a challenge considering the shortened preseason in the NHL, which limits the number of chances for a neutral-site like Wichita to host, but G1 Sports & Entertainment are determined to make a preseason NHL game an annual event every fall in Wichita.

The next time the NHL does return, Wichita fans only had one small request to improve the experience: merchandise.

“Everybody I talked to wanted to buy merchandise and there was nothing for sale (Saturday),” Brewer said. “No Blues items. No Coyotes items. I felt like everybody was missing out on a huge opportunity there. I guess there was some kind of problem with splitting the royalties, so it didn’t work out this time. That was a little disappointing because I think everybody there would have loved to buy some gear.”