NHL Arena #34

Last weekend, C and I traveled to Las Vegas to see a Golden Knights game!

We took a very late flight to Las Vegas on Thursday, October 26, which arrived at about 12:45 am local time.  We grabbed a cab from the airport to our hotel and checked in around 1:30 am or so.

We stayed at the Mandarin Oriental, which is absolutely gorgeous.  Almost TOO fancy for us!  You know you're in an upscale place when the vending machine in the lobby offers champagne!  We had to take an elevator up to the 23rd floor to get to the front desk, and then a different elevator down to the 18th floor where our room was located!  The room was beautiful with an amazing view, but the best part of the hotel was that it does not have a casino in it!  I'm no fan of smoky, noisy casinos!

Since we hadn't eaten for about ten hours or so, we decided to go out and wander around the Strip and get a bite to eat.  Although we'd never eaten there before, we ended up at FatBurger for two reasons - one, it was open 24 hours, and two, its menu included a veggie burger.  While some of my praise could be attributed to the fact that I was very hungry, I thought the food was very good!  After our very late dinner / very early breakfast, we walked around and took photos of some of the hotels.  Don't ask me why, but I just love the Flamingo!  It has a retro, '70s sort of vibe to it, and I think it's awesome!

By the time we got back to our hotel, it was about 4:30 am, and clearly we needed to go to sleep because aside from some snoozing on the plane, we'd both been up for about 26 hours!

We "slept in" on Friday morning until about 10:30, which was really only about six hours of sleep.  The reason we didn't sleep later than that was because the hockey game was a 3:00 pm.  On a Friday.  Yes, you read that correctly.  If that seems like a bizarre day and time to have an NHL game, you are not alone!  We checked multiple sources when we were buying the tickets because that really didn't make any sense to us!  Well, it turns out that it happened to be Nevada Day, which is celebrated on the last Friday of October each year to commemorate Nevada joining the Union.  Who knew?!?  It is a big deal there, so the timing of the hockey game made a little more sense once we learned this information!

We had lunch at a place called 800 Degrees Pizza - very similar to Blaze Pizza - and then dessert at Shake Shack before the game.  Afterwards, we wandered through the area outside the arena, which has bars and restaurants, and several fun hockey activities for kids and families.  It was close to 90 degrees, but did not feel intolerable the way 90 degrees + humidity feels!

The Las Vegas Golden Knights are the newest team to join the NHL and are currently playing in their first season.  We were excited to go to game and up our grand total to 34 NHL arenas!  The arena itself is beautiful, and we had amazing seats for the game, as you can see from the photos below!

One of the ways I judge my experience at NHL games is by the behavior of the other fans.  There have been games where the fans were out of control and "security" did nothing about them, which ruined it for everyone else in attendance.  Hockey tickets are very expensive, and it makes me so angry when obnoxious fans have no regard for others and make me want to leave the game early.

I'm very happy to report that the Vegas fans were fantastic!  There were a good number of Colorado fans at the game (the Golden Knights were playing the Avalanche), but everyone seated around us was extremely courteous.  It turned out to be a very lopsided victory for the Golden Knights, who won 7-0....maybe not the best played hockey game in terms of statistics, but highly entertaining to watch! At the end of the game, they played "Viva Las Vegas" by Elvis Presley...I don't know if they play this after every game or just after a win, but it was fun to have the crowd singing along!  It was a great fan experience overall and I can definitely see us going to another game there in the future.

After the game, we went back to hotel to rest for a while, but I ended up falling asleep before 8:00 because clearly the exhaustion had finally caught up with me!

On Saturday, because we'd fallen asleep so early, we were up very early in the morning and decided to go out and walk around and find some breakfast, since we had not eaten dinner the previous night.  Lo and behold, we ended up at FatBurger again and tried some things from the breakfast menu and everything was delicious!  After checking out of the hotel, we spent a few hours walking around taking photos and then tried a different pizza place for lunch called Flour and Barley (I highly recommend!).  I am not a fan of casinos, as you might guess, given that we chose a hotel without a casino in it very purposefully....however, I do love the architecture of the various hotels along the Strip!  We spent some time at the Bellagio because we love the Conservatory and Botanical Gardens there - the autumn decor was incredible!

After lunch we took an Uber about 25 minutes away from the Strip and arrived at my dad's house!  He recently relocated there from Arizona because his wife's new job is in Las Vegas, so we spent the remainder of the day with them.  We had such a nice visit!  My dad drove us to the airport that evening for our red-eye flight home, and we arrived at 7:30 am on Sunday.

What a crazy, whirlwind trip!  But so fun!  And anytime I can see my dad is just the best!

We still have two new arenas to visit - Detroit and Edmonton - because they've been built since we went to games in their old arenas!  Not sure we'll be making it to Edmonton this season, but Detroit is a distinct possibility!

Happy Tails to you!