First game at T-Mobile
these players are going to have a little adrenaline boost,
so I expect a little extra jump here tonight.
All that’s left to do is drop the puck.
And away we go.
It’s amazing that we’ve pulled this off— that we’ve actually got a franchise in Vegas
and that
we have this fabulous rink downtown.
Everybody’s in the same situation, we’re all players that come from different teams, and
It’s been good. I mean, like every time we go out for dinner—something like that.
[Laughing]
I knew you would do that.
Marche, I always thought that he would be able to break out at anytime when given the chance.
Go, go, Linde!
David Perron, what we like about David is that man just loves playing hockey.
Being professional everyday and then doing all the right things to get better on the ice.
Also, the community. I’m very excited to be a part of this.
There’s been so much work— like this happened and I feel fortunate to be here and really looking forward to this home game.
Marc-Andre Fleury is a champion. He’s one three Stanley Cups.
He’s the best player on our team and he’s the reason why we have a chance to win every night.
Alright, let’s put some work in here.
Great opportunity for an expansion team, everything’s starting fresh and new and I’m very excited about it.
Work together as a team, everybody goes together as a team.
It’s been outstanding— like our first exhibition game here,
the excitement, the energy in the building, I’ve never seen anything like it.
Nate, the first time I met him— he’s smiling, he’s laughing, he’s giggling, and it’s all you hear.
All right, yeah!
This place feels like something that I’ve been missing, it just had felt like it was a community.
Las Vegas Golden Knights are going to take that Stanley Cup.
1, 2, 3!
It’s just pretty special. And then just in your hometown the boys get to grow up
You get another boo-boo?
watching their dad play at home.
Where?
[Crying]
Deryk Engelland, a guy who defends his teammates, plays his game, knows his role.
I only heard great things about him before playing with him and I’m really glad to get to know him.
Let’s just make sure we continue to talk.
The challenges of us being an expansion team is that we’re all new.
And yet, that’s an exciting challenge— I think it’s an exciting time for the players.
So, there are challenges but they are challenges we look forward to facing,
and you know, we are going to have some challenges we don’t know are coming yet.
We got shots fired,
sounded like an automatic firearm.
We have an active shooter, we have an active shooter inside the fairgrounds.
[Gunshots]
Can you tell me where it is coming from?
At that moment, they didn’t know if there was like 2 or 3 shooters, and maybe they were on the move, or running somewhere.
[Police Sirens]
We have multiple casualties, [indistinct conversation] multiple casualties.
159— it’s coming from like the 50th or 60th floor.
I got a call from a friend back home asking if I was fine and everything.
I didn’t know what he was talking about, I had to turn on the TV and then I saw it.
[Gunshots]
The sound of automatic gunfire and screams of terror after a gunman opened fire at a
crowded country music festival on the Las Vegas strip Sunday night.
[Indistinct screaming]
You imagine all the people that are in the crowd and the people that are going to help.
It’s impossible to think why someone would be doing something like this.
[Indistinct conversations]
I heard from our security reps from the NHL, they let us know immediately
what was happening.
And they went out and found about 10 of our players who were out getting something to eat
and drove them home.
We had heard about it while we were just finishing up dinner and then when I got home, I turned on the news
and you know, it seemed like nobody really knew exactly what was going on— it was still very fresh—
and you know, it’s absolutely devastating.
We're lucky.
There were a lot of people that didn’t get to go home that night.
We are looking at an excess of 50 individuals dead and over 200 individuals injured at this point.
It’s almost surreal, you know that stuff happens in the world where you don’t think it’s going to happen here at home
you know it’s hit Vegas hard, I think.
I knew people that were at the concert.
The first responders I knew.
I do a charity hockey game in the summer with a bunch of firefighters and some pro guys.
Guys are asking, ‘what can we do, what can we do to help?'
It felt like this is— you’re part of this community
and it’s happened to you and your friends and family.
This is the line to sign in— there are a few options:
Option 1: You wait in this line to sign in, you wait some more, we’re 6 hours behind and we’ll all hopefully give blood today.
Option 2: we need volunteers to help— give out water, give out food, and pick up trash.
If you have any questions, we’re all walking around and we’re all willing to help.
Essentially, we have a line that circles around the building and down the street in order to sign up to give blood.
I signed in to give blood at 6:04 this morning, I’m still waiting to try and give blood.
This is my city, I was born and raised in Las Vegas— this is my town.
What happened last night was a tragedy and it should not have happened,
but the turnout— all of these amazing people who are looking to give blood just shows how much love is in this city.
Right now we’re at one of the blood donation centers.
We’re just here thanking people for donating their time and blood for the victims.
I’d love to donate my own right now, but they said that they’ve got enough people right now, but
we’re going to come back once they need some more and donate some of our own,
so it’s just amazing to see how many people have turned out for this— it's crazy.
One of our co-workers, Rachel Parker
I heard that she was shot and killed— amazing person.
If you talked to Rachel for any amount of time, within the first 4 seconds you're smiling.
Because that’s just the way she was— bubbly personality.
We had 3 other co-workers here that came down for the concert.
Had to process it for a second and then kind of went into ‘what can I do?'
and myself and another co-worker jumped on the freeway and headed up.
I want to do something, so that’s the reason I’m here right now giving blood.
Because I can’t help Rachel, but I can definitely help another family.
It hurts like hell, it’s a hard thing for everybody to go through.
What all this means, nobody knows.
I could see my boyfriend and I remember looking up and my boyfriend just screaming at everyone to run,
just screaming at everyone, 'don't sit down, it’s an easier target, just run.'
I wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for him.
It’s tough to...
It’s tough to process things like that in your head and you’re seeing some things that are from movies,
from horror stories.
Just that you guys are showing up and showing your support for our city and the people that were killed and hurt
right next to me just means so much.
You know, even though we’re new to the community, we wanna show that we’re part of this
and this is our home and we all want to be united in times like this.
[Indistinct conversations]
It’s really amazing how this community has come together.
I personally have not seen the level of people outside of these donor centers—
I think this is closest akin to the response after 9/11.
A lot of people from the organization set somethings up for us players to go and see what we could do—
if we could lend a helping hand.
We went over to the community and visited a few different places.
[Indistinct conversations]
We’re going to move heaven and earth to help in this community,
we’re going to pledge our full support.
Our players are asking what they can do and how they can help and they’ve been out there helping in any way that they can.
And we are going to grieve and heal and persevere together.
[Indistinct conversations]
It’s the least we can do, you know?
Get some smiles on people's faces, distraction and see the excitement that this city has for this hockey team is really cool.
Thanks for coming out, I really appreciate it.
I appreciate everything you guys do.
Enjoy the town.
They say that they're a little starstruck, but I feel the same way, you know?
These are the people out there protecting us everyday and they ran in to save lives and that’s pretty amazing.
[Indistinct conversations]
We are professionals at what we do and we’re here and we still have to do our job.
But in the community, we’re just a part of it.
This isn’t a—something that you look at and say,
’oh it’s just the hockey players out in the community'
this is just people— your brothers and sisters out in the community doing what they can to help.
We got Deryk Engelland and Marc-Andre Fleury.
Appreciate you guys being with us and The Golden Knights out in the community already,
big big events happening.
Of course the Knights will open their season this Friday at Dallas and then back home for the home opener
right here in Las Vegas.
I would like to thank everyone that came out tonight.
It is an overwhelming response— I am so thankful.
We will now take a moment of silence for 21 hours ago when the first shots were fired.