An outdoor NHL game? Hockey in Las Vegas? Preposterous! . . . until they both happened at once
The seeds of the Vegas Golden Knights’ success as a model NHL franchise can be traced back more than 30 years.
It was on this date in 1991 that the league not only staged its first outdoor game between two of its clubs, it did so in what seemed the unlikeliest of locations – the parking lot of Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
Many sporting events had taken place there over the years, notably championship boxing matches and Evel Knievel’s failed jump over the casino’s fountains. It was 1988 when Rich Rose, president of Caesars World Sports and, more importantly, a New York Rangers fan, dreamed up the idea and thought it could work. Eventually, he convinced Steve Flatow, who was the NHL’s director of marketing.
The Los Angeles Kings, the closest NHL franchise to Vegas, agreed to participate in a pre-season exhibition game and to help get the Rangers on board. Caesars Palace spent more than $135,000 building the temporary rink, which measured 182 by 85 feet, and seats that surrounded it. The game was televised live across the United States and more than 13,000 fans turned out to see it in person.
That number didn’t include the grasshoppers and locusts who were attracted by the bright lights and the white ice, which they quickly froze to after landing on it. Despite that, the game went off mostly without a hitch. The Rangers jumped out to an early 2-0 lead on goals by Tony Amonte and Doug Weight, but the Kings came back for a 5-2 win on goals by Tony Granato, Brian Benning, Sylvain Couturier, Jari Kurri, and Wayne Gretzky.
The success of the game led to the creation of the city’s first pro hockey team, the Las Vegas Thunder of the IHL, who began play in 1993. Between 1997 and 2016, the Kings played an annual pre-season exhibition game in Vegas called Frozen Fury, usually against the Colorado Avalanche; these contests ceased when the Golden Knights joined the NHL in 2017.
More than that, with the NHL having proven it could successfully stage a hockey game without a roof, it facilitated the creation of the league's annual outdoor showcases - the Heritage Classic, the Winter Classic, and the Stadium Series.
Also on this date:
1930 – The NHL refined its offside rule to clarify that, according to a report in the Montreal Daily Star, “The puck must first be propelled into the attacking zone before any player on the attacking side can enter that zone . . . No attacking player will now be permitted to cross the line ahead of the puck.” Previously, referees had some discretion on this issue because the rule had referred not to the puck crossing the blue line but to the “play,” namely that it was the movement of the offense that mattered more than anything else, “which meant that if a player was carrying the puck down the centre his two wing men who might be a foot or two ahead of him would not be offside if they crossed the line actually ahead of the puck, as they were considered the ‘play.’” Naturally, officials interpreted this rule differently, hence the need to clarify the rule by putting the focus on the puck.
1947 – Toe Blake signed what turned out to be his last contract as a player with the Montreal Canadiens. As the Montreal Gazette reported, “Toe is out to break Bill Cowley’s all-time record, and in order to do this he’ll have to get 46 points.” As the 35-year-old former league MVP and scoring champion was coming off his second straight 50-point season, this seemed almost a foregone conclusion. Unfortunately, after recording 24 points in 32 games to start the season, Blake suffered a double fracture of his ankle during a game in January 1948. He tried to come back after recovering from the injury but never played another NHL game. He finished his career with 527 points, only 21 shy of Cowley’s record. (He did set lots of records later as a coach, but that's another story!)
1954 – Goaltender Gerry McNeil announced he was retiring from the Canadiens due to recurring anxiety issues. McNeil, who had taken over from Bill Durnan as the Habs’ starting netminder in 1950 and helped the team win the Stanley Cup in 1953, did return to pro hockey a year later with the Montreal Royals of the Quebec Hockey League and suited up a few more times with the Canadiens during the 1956-57 season. But when he stepped down on this date in 1954, it paved the way for Jacques Plante to take over as the main man in the Montreal nets.
1972 – The New York Islanders, a new NHL expansion team, played their first pre-season exhibition game at the Nassau Coliseum. It was also their first meeting against their soon-to-be fierce rivals, the New York Rangers, and they came out on the short end of a 6-4 decision. Glen Sather of the Rangers scored the arena’s first goal.
1976 – Houston Aeros president Gordie Howe announced he was stepping down from his executive position but would fulfill his contract with the team and focus solely on playing alongside his sons, Marty and Mark. The family was already experiencing difficulty in having the terms of their contracts met, with Gordie’s wife and manager Colleen alleging that the Aeros owed them money from the previous season. Gordie compiled 76 total points with the Aeros in 1976-77, including playoffs, but it marked the end of the Howe family’s relationship with the team. They signed with the New England Whalers for the 1977-78 season and beyond.
1986 – The Canadiens signed Stephan Lebeau to a contract. Lebeau had not been drafted into the NHL after scoring a QMJHL-leading 77 goals for the Shawinigan Cataractes in 1985-86. The Canadiens sent him back to Shawinigan for one more season of junior hockey, and he once again led the QMJHL in goals, notching 94 in 67 games. Lebeau joined the Canadiens full-time in 1989-90 and was a 31-goal scorer on their most recent Stanley Cup-winning team, in 1992-93.
2001 – Jason Smith was named the 14th captain of the Edmonton Oilers. He took over from Doug Weight, who had been traded to St. Louis in the off-season. Smith wore the ‘C’ for the next five seasons, tying Wayne Gretzky for the longest tenure as captain to that point in the franchise’s history, a distinction now held by Connor McDavid. Smith, like Weight (and most of the Oilers' captains before him, including Gretzky), lost the captaincy due to a change of address; coincidentally, he was traded to Philadelphia on the sixth anniversary of the deal that sent Weight to the Blues.