'You'd think the Oilers are playing in the Super Bowl': Edmonton fans take over Las Vegas for potentially historic NHL game
CTV
Hockey fans travelling to Las Vegas to watch their favourite team is commonplace — and observing legions of them from Western Canada in the hotels, casinos, restaurants and bars of the popular tourist destination has become a standard.
Hockey fans travelling to Las Vegas to watch their favourite team is commonplace — and observing legions of them from Western Canada in the hotels, casinos, restaurants and bars of the popular tourist destination has become a standard.
At any given game between the host Vegas Golden Knights and one of the Vancouver Canucks, Calgary Flames or Edmonton Oilers, seemingly half the crowd at T-Mobile Arena just off the Las Vegas Strip is sporting the colours of the visiting team.
Tuesday night's game is another one of them, but it's got a much different vibe, much more than what's become usual.
And it involves the Oilers, the National Hockey League's hottest team that's on a 16-game winning streak — one victory from tying a league record — coming off a nine-day all-star break and playing a Golden Knights squad that many now consider Edmonton's chief rival.
It was Vegas, after all, that eliminated them in a hotly contested six-game playoff series nine months ago en route to winning the Stanley Cup, something that has resonated with Oilers players and fans alike.
Leon Draisaitl, when asked Monday if Tuesday's game — Edmonton's lone stop in Sin City this regular season — is bigger than other games, the Oilers star shrugged off the significance of a potential win but did offer facing off against the Golden Knights under these circumstances might matter "a little bit" more.
That's not lost on Oilers fans gathered in Las Vegas, either, and while a record-tying win against a bitter rival would fuel their fire for the team, there's an ultimate goal in their minds, too.
