Golden Knights had epic Stanley Cup parade on Saturday night
Most championship parades take place on a random weekday afternoon, and while they still bring out tens of thousands of people (and sometimes hundreds of thousands of people) they do not really match the spectacle that was the Vegas Golden Knights Stanley Cup parade.
The Golden Knights celebrated their first ever Stanley Cup win in typical Vegas style, going with an all-out Saturday night rager on the Las Vegas strip.
Pretty awesome scene.
Saturday's parade had the usual championship spectacle to it, but William Karlsson, one of the original Golden Knights, ended up stealing the show with a profanity-laced speech (see it here, but be pre-warned of the NSFW language in there) that went on for several minutes.
The Golden Knights were Las Vegas' first professional sports team and the city immediately fell in love with them. It did not hurt that the team was immediately competitive, reaching the Stanley Cup Final in its first-ever season (2017-18) before losing to Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals in five games.
The team has remained a top Stanley Cup contender every year since and ultimately reached the top of the NHL mountain this year in just their sixth season. They are one of the fastest champions for an expansion team in North American sports history.
Along with being one of the league's best teams—and now a Stanley Cup champion—Vegas has also quickly developed a rabid fan base and one of the best home-ice advantages in hockey. Everything about their games is a Las Vegas-style spectacle and that carried over to the championship celebration. Building an immediate winner and having ownership that is willing to do anything and everything to win certainly helps build that core fanbase.
With most of their core players locked into long-term contracts there is no reason to believe that Vegas will not be a major Stanley Cup contender again next season.
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