It was a typical October Sunday night. The Seahawks were squaring off with the Colts on Sunday Night Football while I downed a large bowl of some corn chowder I had made earlier in the day. It was a school night, so I found myself drifting off to sleep, still a bit fatigued from the Life is Beautiful music fest the week before.
At a little before 11 p.m., I awoke to a barrage of text tone alerts that simply kept coming. “Are you ok?” “Please let me know you’re alright!” “Have you heard from so and so?” I was completely confused, and — still shaking off the cobwebs — I immediately jumped on social media to see what in hell was going on. My eyes widened and my heart sank into the floor as I heard the news, knowing I had dozens of loved ones and friends down there at the Route 91 Festival.
That moment, the world, as we knew it, was gone forever…
For those of us who live here, especially in the southern part of the valley, the Mandalay Bay is the first piece of the familiar skyline we see every morning on our way to work, coming home from little league games, or late on a night out on the town. It has become more than that now, a memorial for so many lives lost and shattered on that fateful night.
As I drove to school that morning, after absolutely no sleep as I confirmed the status of friends who had been hit and those who made it out safely, I wondered how this city would recover. What hope would we find in all this loss, fear and sadness? In a city long-known for its tourism and nomadic residents, the idea of community had been a foreign concept to many here in Southern Nevada.
We went to the vigils. Hugged our friends knowing they were safe. We gave blood. We visited the iconic “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign that had transformed from a welcome wagon to a memorial to those who were unable to find safety under the hail of hatred that came from above. We put our first foot forward and did what we could to put as much time between us and the horrible experience on 1 October.
Then, Deryk Engelland spoke to us all.
Our only local Golden Knight, who had friends and family at the festival as we did, opened his heart and his voice and gave one of the most important speeches this city has ever heard. And, then, he spoke the most important words of his career:
“We are Vegas strong.”
Goosebumps.
Had the Golden Knights only won just three games from that point on, our city would have rallied and found its strength, slowly but surely. They didn’t, and what followed is something out of a Disney movie. But this isn’t the Mighty Ducks. This isn’t some Hollywood-ized fictional account based on a story inspired by true events.
This was our lives, laid open and bare for the whole world to see.
People say sports are just a bunch of grown men playing a kids’ game, but I disagree. The hope, the camaraderie, the common goal, the circle of faceless friends who each have their own stories to tell — all play a part in a strong community.
Vegas isn’t Chicago, or New York. We aren’t a city built from our founding fathers. We are a city built on tourism and excess, here to help outsiders live out their wildest fantasies.
But now, it’s our turn. On our home ice. It’s our fantasy we’re living out now, not yours. From the ashes of destruction and despair, our true colors came shining through — in Vegas Gold — when it mattered most.
For many of us, the healing started the day Engelland cried with us as we welcomed our Golden Misfits into the community. As the Knights vie for the Stanley Cup as arguably the greatest expansion team in sports history and the year’s greatest sports story, we come together one more time to show the NHL — and the world — that we truly are #VegasStrong.
