Vegas Voice 7-18

Sporting Solidarity
By: Judy Polumbaum / Our View
The Vegas Golden Knights were Cinderella,
newcomer belle of the ball. The Washington
Capitals were Snow White, waking after a long
slumber. Only one of them would get the fairytale ending.
So the Capitals bested the Knights to win the Stanley Cup. Still, Vegas
fans could feel great about their new National Hockey League expansion
team’s phenomenal run in its inaugural season.
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July 2018
Why does it matter? Why do people care so much about sports?
First, as psychologists, sociologists, poets and pundits can tell you, sports
encompass the range of what it means to be human. For participants
themselves, athletics incorporate mind and matter, preparation and
instinct, all the senses and feelings. For spectators as well, sports evoke
physical, emotional, intellectual and even spiritual responses.
Second, sports are rule-bound. We may quibble a bit, but mostly a goal
is a goal, a foul a foul. In a world of uncertainty and transgression, the
order and borders of sports are reassuring.
Third, sports produce great stories. Each game (jokes about Vegas
rigging everything aside) has drama and suspense, the conclusion
unknown until the end. Every sport offers compelling characters; in the
case of the Knights, topping the cast is the virtuous gentleman coach
Gerard Gallant, unceremoniously dumped by the Florida Panthers at the
end of 2016, recalled to lead a flock of upstarts.
Vegas had a few more things going: The need for festive relief from the
horrendous reality of the October 1 st shootings, the Knights’ ability to win
games, and the novelty of finally getting major league action.
We know it’s big business. Knights ticket prices are a good clue. So are
players’ salaries, ranging from the minimum $650,000 to upwards of
five million.
Owners get tax breaks and stadium deals. The wheeling and dealing of
the draft (just completed for the NHL) and frenzy of free agency (starting
July 1 in the NHL) remind us that loyalties don’t lie with location.
Some of our favorite guys are Canadian, for goodness sake! Coach
Gallant is Canadian!
Yet sports inspire popular passions beyond just about anything else.
Obviously, the Knights have been good for Vegas. The psychic benefits
are striking. At the very least, arriving to report on the Stanley Cup finals,
Sports Illustrated discovered that Vegas harbors ordinary people living
ordinary lives.
The Knights draw isolated neighbors out of their caves for conversation.
They give strangers cause to exchange smiles and even hugs.
Silly as that may seem, we’ll take it.
Judy is a professor emerita of journalism and a recent transplant
to Las Vegas from the Midwest.