Prior to the Golden Knights’ game against the Calgary Flames on Nov. 17, the team will hold an exclusive premiere of the documentary film, “Valiant” at T-Mobile Arena.
The documentary, directed by Cruz Angeles, highlights the Golden Knights’ miraculous inaugural season, their run to the Stanley Cup final, and the unification between the team and the city of Las Vegas following the tragic shooting on Oct. 1, 2017.
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The viewing will begin at 1:30 p.m., and will be available to all fans with tickets to the 4 p.m. game against the Flames. The doors will open for the premiere at 1 p.m., and a special question and answer session featuring the “Valiant” production team will immediately follow the showing. That will roll right into the Golden Knights’ afternoon contest with their Pacific Division foes.
“I think it’s going to be fantastic,” Golden Knights owner Bill Foley told The Athletic. “It really is a thank you to the fans, and a thank you to Las Vegas, but it’s just a great story. It’s a great timeline of how we started the whole thing, and everything we did and everything we went through to get the franchise. It’s really a well-done film.”
Film premieres at live sporting events are extremely rare, and one in front of the ultra-emphatic T-Mobile Arena crowd should be electric.
“The energy is going to be unbelievable,” Foley said. “It’s a very inspiring film so I think the fans will be pretty psyched up for that game. (The energy) is going to at least equal the home opener against the Sharks. It’s going to be crazy.”
The film is produced by Virgil Price, who also produced feature films “Lovely, Still” (2008) and “Don’t Let Me Drown” (2009), as well as the ESPN series 30 for 30 installment “Fernando Nation.”
Price grew up a New York Rangers fan and was excited to showcase the unbelievable success Vegas had as an expansion team. In 2017-18, the Golden Knights raced out to an unexpected 8-1-0 start, and rode that momentum to a Pacific Division championship and a trip to the Stanley Cup final.
The film features a plethora of footage from the NHL Original Productions archives, chronicling the birth of the franchise in Las Vegas and in-game footage from throughout the season.
“The 2017-18 Vegas Golden Knights were the unforgettable Cinderella story of the NHL season,” said Steve Mayer, NHL chief content office and executive vice president. “The Golden Knights forever cemented their place in the hearts of the residents of Las Vegas and captured the imagination of the rest of the hockey world not only with their historic performance on the ice but also their commitment to unifying their community in the face of tragedy. Years from now, their first season will truly be one of the greatest stories in the history of the NHL.”
More importantly than their amazing accomplishments on the ice, Price and Angeles wanted to shine a light on the connection formed between the Golden Knights and a healing city following the tragic events at the Route 91 Harvest festival where 58 lives were lost.
“I want to be clear that it is definitely a hockey movie. It’s about the unbelievable success of the team, as an expansion team going all the way to the finals, but much more than that,” Price told The Athletic. “The story of what happened on the ice pales in comparison to the emotional and psychological impact it had on the community.”
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When Price contacted Angeles about producing the film, he admits he had his reservations.
“Virgil pitched the story to me, and I’m not really a hockey fan and didn’t know much about the Golden Knights. I started doing my due diligence to find out if I was the right person for this,” Angeles explained. “Virgil’s focus was always on how they healed the town, and to me that’s a very loaded thing to say because it’s very presumptuous to say you healed a town. But in the days after the loss in the Stanley Cup there was an outpouring of love from the community, and to me that was the essence of the story.”
Angeles was overwhelmed by the emotional connections many fans showed with the team, and he was convinced. The film crew made several trips to Vegas to meet with team executives, players and fans.
“Las Vegas is a real American community like anywhere else, and I think what the Golden Knights did was they gave visibility to these invisible folks, who are the ones working in the casinos, and doctors and firemen and police officers, that we never really think about when we think of Las Vegas,” Angeles said. “A lot of other cities have the metaphorical town square, and for a lot of them that is a stadium or arena, where they all go and root for the same team. And they didn’t have that in Las Vegas.”
It’s something owner Bill Foley has preached since he first bought the team.
“There is so much more to the city of Las Vegas than what most people know,” Foley said. “Beyond the bright lights of the Strip is a strong, tight-knit, hard-working community of over two million people who are proud to call Las Vegas home.”
Price and Angeles both admitted they eventually found themselves much more emotionally connected with the tragedy than they initially anticipated.
“I was aware of the One October shooting, but I didn’t feel the emotional pain or the emotional stress the entire city of Las Vegas went through,” Price said.
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The film features the Tonks family, who lost Neysa Tonks in the shooting. Tonks was a 46-year-old single mother raising three sons.
“Interviewing her sons and her parents were some of the most emotional moments of my lifetime,” Price said. “What it showed me was that if we made the movie properly that we could show so much more than just the sports side. It could show how a community and a sports team came together in the face of an unbelievable tragedy.
“I’m very proud and happy to say that I believe we captured that in the film,” he continued. “It shows the on-ice success, but much, much more how they bonded with, and helped heal the community.”
The film features the heroic efforts of first responders, and the fantastic response from the Golden Knights organization in the days that followed the tragedy. From the team donating $300,000 to victims and first responders, to the players visiting the police station and blood banks, the team formed a bond with the city.
“Hopefully the fans connect with the film,” Angeles said. “When I was making the film I tried to tell the story to the people who don’t know anything about the story, and then hope that people who are familiar with it will also be impacted. When I showed it to the team it was a pretty awesome experience because some of them said it brought them back. Hearing from Marc-Andre Fleury that he really enjoyed the film was a good pat on the back.”
For fans not attending the game on Nov. 17, the film will be available nationwide via VOD (video on demand) streaming platforms on Dec. 13, 2019.
“It’s such an honor to hold this premiere at this event,” Price said. “We decided to name this film Valiant to pay tribute to the indomitable spirit of this great city and its first professional sports team.”
(Top photo courtesy of Sterling Productions)