Golden Knights looked to Boston to help Las Vegas move on from tragedy

LAS VEGAS – As you leave McCarran Airport en route to T-Mobile Arena, the bright gold Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino glistens in the desert sunlight.

The Vegas Strip is bustling with tourists and it appears life is getting back to normal. It’s tough to fathom what occurred here on Oct. 1, when a gunman killed 58 people in a horrific rampage that shattered a city.

A cab driver said the mood around town has been surprisingly better the last few days, but he wondered what it will be like once the large annual SEMA Show convention for automotive specialty products takes place later this month.

Outside the arena, which is located right off the Strip between New York-New York Hotel and Casino, and Monte Carlo Resort and Casino, there were plenty of Bruins fans roaming about, taking pictures and buying Golden Knights merchandise at the team store near Frank Sinatra Dr.

In some small way, the city’s first-ever professional hockey team has helped the healing process. Unfortunately — or fortunately, depending on how you want to look at it — the Golden Knights took their cue from the Bruins, Red Sox, Celtics and Patriots when dealing with tragedy.



Eric Tosi spent 10 seasons with the Bruins in public relations and was on staff when the team tried to help the city heal after the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. He’s now the vice president of communications and content for the Golden Knights and he took his experiences and lessons learned in Boston and implemented many of them in Vegas after the tragedy.

Tosi was invited to the country music fest that Sunday and was supposed to be next to the stage, but he didn’t go to the show. Many on his staff did go and fortunately made it out safely. After the shooting, the Golden Knights quickly sprang into action. First and foremost, they made sure everyone in their organization and their families were accounted for after the incident. When everyone checked in, it was then time to help the victims, families and first responders.

“The one thing that I certainly took from a personal perspective (after the marathon bombing), being from Massachusetts, was just how big of a part that the sports teams played in the healing process for the whole community,” Tosi said. “When you saw the Red Sox players, and the Bruins players, and the Celtics and Patriots, and how much it affected them and how much they were willing to show their support and help do whatever they can to help Boston heal was inspiring.

“As a native New Englander, and a fan of those teams, that really raised spirits. When an unfortunate situation happened here, we felt it was, from the same perspective, doing whatever we can to help the community heal.”

A few days after the shooting in Vegas, Golden Knights GM George McPhee said the team was going to move heaven and earth to do whatever they could to help. The players, sporting their Golden Knights sweaters, went to blood banks, hospitals, police and fire stations and were welcomed into the community.

“It went a long way,” Tosi said. “It’s a small part, but sports teams, because there’s such an attachment, can help bind the community together and help raise the overall spirits of the city and the fans that follow the team.”

The organization made significant monetary donations, upwards of $500,000, immediately after the tragedy to help relief efforts. All proceeds from the 51/49 raffle (Vegas’ version of the 50/50) are also being donated to victims and first responders.

The Golden Knights, who had a preseason game at T-Mobile Arena only hours before the shooting, began their inaugural season on Oct. 6 on the road in Dallas. Vegas’ first home game was Oct. 10.



Golden Knights’ Deryk Engelland has called Vegas home for 10 years, met his wife here and his children were born here. Similar to what David Ortiz did at Fenway Park, Engelland stood at center ice before a capacity crowd at T-Mobile Arena and gave an inspiring speech.

“What everybody remembered (in Boston) is David Ortiz’s speech,” recalled Tosi. “The expletive thrown in there was one thing, but to hear somebody who isn’t from Boston but really has become such a part of that city, and for him to come out and give that speech, it was powerful and inspirational. Deryk Engelland knows what this city is all about.”

The pregame ceremony, at least watching it on TV, was extremely emotional. Former longtime radio voice of the Bruins, Dave Goucher, left Boston after 17 seasons to become the television play-by-play broadcaster for the Golden Knights. He was obviously at the TD Garden when the Bruins played the first game after the bombing and he explained how Vegas’ ceremony was just as moving in person.

“The event staff did an unbelievable job, because they really had to change everything,” Goucher said. “They already had everything planned for the pregame ceremony for the first-ever game in franchise history, and then something like that happens you have to change it.

"It was unreal. They hit all the right notes. It was a great tribute to the 58 people that we lost and all the people that were injured, but it was also about the survivors, first responders, doctors and nurses. It was great to see the best of society and what they’re able to do in a horrible situation like that. So, they hit all the right notes, paying tribute to that, but then also being inspiring.”

Goucher received numerous text messages and calls from family, friends and fans back in Boston when news broke of the horrific event in Vegas. Watching how the community reacted here was similar to Boston after the bombing. It was another surreal moment.

“It brought a lot of that right back,” Goucher said. “It was that helpless feeling. I remember the first day or two after the marathon bombings, I thought about it a lot the first couple of days after the shootings here, people were walking around with a kind of a stunned silence, like they were in a daze. You don’t know what to do with it. What do you make of that? You can’t make any sense out of it. So, it just brought a lot of those emotions back. How the magnitude of a tragedy like that and how senseless it is. From the Bruins standpoint, I remember how much they tried to help and all those emotions came back.”

In the midst of those two horrific, tragic and sad events in Boston and Vegas, the sports organizations had the stage to remember the victims and honor the heroes and that’s exactly what they did.

“There were these inspirational stories that came out, and it was the same in Boston. We tried to honor those heroes,” Tosi said. “Everyone sees Vegas as you come in for the weekend and you leave. Our team, we’re here now. We’re part of the community just like the doctors, the nurses, the EMTs, and the first responders – we’re not going anywhere because this is home.”



On the ice, the expansion Golden Knights are 4-1-0. The players are playing inspirational hockey because they understand the positive impact it can make for those suffering. The Bruins reached the Stanley Cup final in 2013 and it was an incredible lift for Boston and the fans. The emotion surrounding that run was real. Unfortunately, the Bruins lost in the finals to the Chicago Blackhawks. The Red Sox made up for it when they won the World Series that fall.

“It’s one of those things where it becomes about more than just hockey,” said Adam McQuaid. “As athletes, sometimes you get consumed in the sport itself, then things like that happen you reflect and realize you’re doing more than just playing the game. If you’re able to give people who are going through a difficult time an escape, even if it’s only for a few hours, something you’re able to cheer for, that’s the way you look at it and you want to play well and have a good product for your fans, especially in situations like this.”

The Bruins lost their first game back on that emotional night at TD Garden on April 17, 2013. It was a 3-2 shootout loss to the Buffalo Sabres. The atmosphere can be difficult to handle and it’s tough to expect how a team will react in such a situation. It can drain a person emotionally, especially for the players who need to perform.

The Golden Knights responded on Oct. 10.

“They were up 4-0 in 11 minutes,” Goucher said. “They drew inspiration from it, so the game was over early. Going back to Boston, for people just to be able to focus on something else, even if it’s for three hours a day, it’s better than the alternative of every minute of every day, trying to recover from this horrible situation. (The Golden Knights) have done a heck of a job to help people as much as they can, even if it’s only for a few hours a day to feel better,” Goucher said. “I’m sure that will continue.”

Unfortunately, Las Vegas and Boston will have always have a connection. Sports become secondary, a distant afterthought, when events like the marathon bombing and the shooting occurred. Events like these put life into perspective. These athletes play a game for a living and make a lot of money doing it. Sports have proven in the past to help the healing process and both the Bruins and Golden Knights have done it right.

“Is it going to cure everything? No,” Tosi said. “But it’s going to help. It was a similar approach that we took here. We looked at what the Bruins did, what the Red Sox did and we wanted to do whatever we can to help people.”