So how does this team follow up such a historic and record-breaking season?  With a very active summer and an outstanding 6-1 record in the preseason!  I can't wait for Year Two to begin, but here's a quick recap of the recent news...

PATCHING UP A HOLE IN THE TOP SIX

In order to facilitate the move, GM George McPhee got Pacioretty to agree to a four-year contract extension worth $7 million per season - a deal that helps both sides, with the player getting significant dollars and the team getting a shorter term for cap flexibility.  I think this is an excellent move all around, and really serves to show the rest of the league that last season was no fluke and that the Knights intend to remain Stanley Cup contenders for the immediate future.  But was the cost to acquire Pacioretty too high?

In exchange for the skilled winger, Vegas had to depart with Tomas Tatar and former 1st round pick Nick Suzuki, as well as a 2nd round pick in 2019.  Honestly, Tatar never really did fit in after being brought over at last season's trade deadline, so his departure is certainly acceptable - as long as you don't lament too hard over the draft picks it took to acquire him, and just chalk that up to "sunk cost".  The team could easily part with another one of their surplus of draft picks, but it was tough to see Suzuki go, especially after seeing him up close twice during the OHL playoffs.  He should be a fantastic player down the road for Montreal (he scored a hat trick in his second game back in the OHL), but that's the price of doing business in today's NHL.

Part 1 of the Michigan-za! saw Chad and I venturing around the great state of Michigan, with four hockey games in four days.  Now, my fiancee Charlene had arrived and we had much more to see...

TUESDAY: 20 FEBRUARY 2018

The busiest day of the trip kicked off with a brief visit to the Gerald R. Ford Library in Ann Arbor - I was always a big fan of Presidential history as a kid, so it was fun to see an assortment of artifacts on display highlighting the life of the 38th U.S. President.

As an added bonus, the library also detailed his career as a football star at the University of Michigan, and his connections to the school after graduation.  I don't think Chad and Charlene cared too much, but I took my time to peruse the building before we headed to downtown Detroit.


Our first stop in Detroit would be the Motown Museum, which was always at the top of my list of things to do when I originally planned this trip.  It definitely lived up to my expectations, as we were treated to a hour-long tour of the famed recording studio that was both funny and heart-warming.  Unfortunately, no pictures are allowed inside, so I had to settle for a group picture out front:


I'm sure it goes without saying, but any visit to Detroit MUST include a stop at the Motown Museum!

Michigan has a VERY rich hockey history.  In addition to the Detroit Red Wings - who have been a part of the NHL for more than 90 years - the state is loaded with teams at every level, including multiple Division I NCAA programs and various minor-league teams.  The U.S. Men's National Team Development Program is based in the city of Plymouth, and there are even two Michigan teams competing in the Ontario Hockey League.

I had seen very little of Detroit during my previous visit to the city (which was done solely to see the Red Wings before they vacated Joe Louis Arena), so this would be my opportunity to traverse the region and cover as much ground - and watch as many teams - as possible, in addition to visiting the new NHL rink during its inaugural season.  I started out by making a list of all of the teams that I could potential see in person, then ranked them by priority and searched for a specific point in the 2017-18 schedule in which they'd all be playing home games in the same time frame.  The perfect opportunity would occur in mid-February, conveniently wrapped around the President's Day holiday, and allowed me to witness EIGHT games in NINE days!

I divided the journey into two overlapping halves, with the Red Wings game being right in the middle - the first half of the trip would see my travel companion Chad accompany me for the first five days before returning to Los Angeles, while my fiancee Charlene would join the fun for the second half.  Though she passed on joining me during my recent trip to Winnipeg, Charlene had developed a taste for some hockey-related traveling (she was still adapting to the "hockey-related" part), and also wanted to come along to see some friends and family in Ohio.  And away we go!

FRIDAY: 16 FEBRUARY 2018

Settling into the dog days of summer after the blitz of Free Agency, it's time for the Knights to focus on re-signing some of their own players...

THE FLOWER WILL CONTINUE TO BLOOM IN THE DESERT

I love Canada...but it can get really cold up there.

This might explain why I had been putting off going to Manitoba for some time.  I've had two different co-workers (both natives of Winnipeg) who tried to explain that visiting the province should be done at either the very beginning OR very end of the hockey season to avoid inclement weather - and even then, March was still dismal and that I should focus my attention on October or November.  This usually meant that I would continually push Winnipeg down the Road Trip list in favor of cities whose weather patterns allowed a little more flexibility.  But now I was running out of places to go...

October 2017 was a busy month: it started with me flying to Vegas for the dramatic home opener of the Golden Knights, and was quickly followed by seeing HAMILTON on stage and Arcade Fire in concert, so I looked to November instead.  From the moment I devised "The Quest", I had every intention of using my Winnipeg trip as a chance to drive to nearby Brandon to see the WHL's Wheat Kings in action, knowing that the odds of ever being in that part of the world again were slim to none.  As it so happened, there was a stretch during the first week of November in which the Wheat Kings and Winnipeg Jets were playing on back-to-back nights on the same weekend, so I penciled that into my schedule and set forth with the planning.

My travel companion Chad had no real interest in seeing Brandon, so I decided to fly up ahead of him and acclimate myself to the surroundings until he arrived for the Jets game.  I'd done my research and found that there weren't too many tourist attractions in Manitoba that called out to me, so I knew my time away from home would be brief - this was well-received by my fiancee, as she passed on coming along for fear that she would be bored.  Traveling alone, it wound up being a very calming trip that allowed me to simply enjoy the tranquility of the vast prairie, which is always a welcome change from the hectic life I have in Los Angeles.  And away we - I mean, "I" - go!

THURSDAY: 2 NOVEMBER 2017

Player movement and roster construction is dominating the hockey news cycle, so let's see how Vegas shapes up...

WHO'S COMING BACK?

Two years after my first visit to Alberta, I put forth a plan to return to the province: the Edmonton Oilers had built a strong, young team around budding superstar Connor McDavid, and they were celebrating their inaugural season at Rogers Place.  Plus, I would now have the opportunity to visit Calgary and see the Flames in action as well.  As had been the case with my previous road trips in the 2016-17 season, my travel companion Chad would have difficulty joining me after having just started at a new job, so he decided to pass, which meant that I would bring my girlfriend Charlene along for the ride (just as I did for the Philadelphia trip).

Since we'd be traveling alone, this would also be the perfect opportunity to ask Charlene to marry me.  If I was going to propose, I had always wanted two factors to come into play: it had to be a surprise and it had to be done somewhere romantic.  Chad skipping out was the perfect decoy to keep Charlene misdirected, but I found myself overly worried about what kind of engagement ring to purchase.  When asking several friends and co-workers, I discovered that many of the women enjoyed picking out their own ring - since it was going to be on their finger for the rest of their life, they preferred to have some say in the matter.  Thankfully, another friend came up with the best idea to keep the surprise intact: I would propose with a "promise ring", and then allow Charlene to pick out the actual diamond ring for posterity.

I'd given myself several options for where to pop the question, and Alberta seemed to be a wonderful backdrop.  When we went to the outdoor NHL game in Santa Clara, I had a brief conversation with Kelly Hrudey, who was covering the game for CBC.  Hrudey often worked as a color analyst for the Calgary Flames, and when I mentioned that I was trying to see a game in every NHL arena, I asked him to suggest some Alberta tourist attractions that might be of interest.  He immediately responded: "You have to see Lake Louise - it's SO beautiful".  He couldn't have been more accurate in his assessment, as virtually every picture I had seen of that region of the Canadian Rockies was absolutely breathtaking.  The plan was coming to fruition.

Charlene has two great obsessions: Jane Eyre, the 19th century literary masterpiece (she runs both a website and blog devoted to the book); and Doctor Who, the long-running British television series about an alien time-traveler and his companion.  To give this moment the most sentimental value, I knew I would need to incorporate elements from each into my proposal.

I searched on Etsy to find both a ring box AND promise ring inspired by Doctor Who - the ring box resembled the Doctor's time travel machine (the "Tardis"), while the promise ring featured a Gallifreyan inscription (the language of the Doctor's home planet) on one side, with the phrase "Together Forever Through Time and Space" engraved on the other.  I would then propose my love to her with the exact same words that Mr. Rochester expresses to Jane Eyre in Chapter 23:

"My bride is here, because my equal is here, and my likeness.  Jane, will you marry me?"

I was so proud of myself for devising a plan that seemed too perfect, and one that Charlene would absolutely cherish.  I hid both the ring and the box in my suitcase when she wasn't looking, and we set off to the Great White North!

Astonishment - it's pretty much the only word that comes to mind...

A MAGICAL SEASON ENDS ONE STEP SHORT

The year was now 2017, and we were coming down the homestretch of The Quest with only a handful of arenas left to see.  Always the opportunist, I've found myself trying to maximize these trips to see as many games as possible during one vacation.  While we were seeing three NHL games in three nights on our initial trip to New York City, I met with the NHL Network's E.J. Hradek and he suggested taking a train to Philadelphia since it was so close - we didn't have the time on that particular trip, but this gave me an idea.

I knew I'd need to come back to New York once the Islanders moved into the Barclays Center in 2015, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to cross Philadelphia off my list as well.  But there was a new wrinkle to my plans: as mentioned in the recap of my previous trip (to Carolina), my travel companion Chad had just started a new job and had not yet accumulated enough vacation days to take significant time off; in addition, he'd already done plenty of sightseeing in the area as part of multiple visits to see the Pennsylvania-based independent wrestling promotion, Chikara.  He would respectfully choose to skip this road trip, while at the same time, my girlfriend Charlene had asked if she could come along instead - she'd long been jealous when hearing of our hockey-related adventures, and she also had an ulterior motive for wanting to tag along (more on that later).

From there, it was just a matter of finding a stretch of days that would include all of the sporting events that I'd like to witness as part of this quick trek to the eastern seaboard: NHL games in Philadelphia and Brooklyn, as well as seeing the historic Palestra basketball arena and an AHL game in the city of Hershey.  The stage was set, and the trip would commence in February, during some brutally unforgiving weather conditions.  Our cross-country flight brought us to Philadelphia on a chilly Wednesday evening, and we grabbed a quick bite at a pizza place located next door to the Airbnb where we were staying.  The rest of the night allowed us to unwind and acclimate ourselves to the frigid surroundings.

THURSDAY: 9 FEBRUARY 2017

When I started my quest to see a game in every NHL arena, I also hoped to see as many games in some of the older arenas which previously hosted NHL franchises.  In most cases, this would be due to the team moving to a newer building and keeping their previous arena open - but there were also a few markets in which the NHL team relocated.  Such was the case with Quebec City.

After entertaining hockey fans for over 20 years in both the WHA and NHL, the Quebec Nordiques moved to Denver and became the Colorado Avalanche in 1995, leaving the city - and its historic arena, Le Colisee - devoid of the highest level of professional hockey.  A minor league team would quickly move into the vacated building for the following season, before giving way in 1999 to the Quebec Remparts of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL).  That year also saw the naming rights purchased by a large soda company, with the arena being re-named Colisee Pepsi.

While researching the "defunct" NHL arenas, I learned that Le Colisee would be closing its doors for good in 2015, after more than 65 years of serving Quebec City with various sporting events and concerts.  The new state-of-the-art Videotron Centre was set to open right next door with the hope of luring a new NHL franchise back to the province, but the legendary venue was given a very prominent swan song: hosting the MasterCard Memorial Cup (or Coupe Memorial, as the French-speaking locals called it), the trophy awarded to the ultimate winner of the Canadian Hockey League.

The round-robin tournament would feature the champions of the CHL's three individual leagues - the Western Hockey League (WHL), Ontario Hockey League (OHL), and the QMJHL - as well as the host Remparts, and was to be held during the last ten days of May.  The opening weekend of the tournament coincided with the Memorial Day holiday, so I planned a four-day vacation in order to see every team in action over the course of three games.  I even found an Airbnb that was walking distance from Le Colisee!

The magical run extends into the postseason, and away we go...

A HEAVY FIRST-ROUND MATCHUP WITH LOS ANGELES

I’ll be the first to admit that I was a little skeptical about the Knights’ chances in this series: the Kings were an experienced team that had been through some physical playoff battles in the past, and I wasn’t sure that Vegas could match that intensity. I also keep waiting for the clock to strike midnight on this Cinderella season, but it was just not meant to be.

Right from the first game, the Knights established their own physical presence and showed that they would not be pushed around. They clamped down on defense and limited the Kings to low-percentage shots from the outside, keeping the area around Marc-Andre Fleury’s crease clear from high-danger opportunities. As a result, Los Angeles would only score THREE goals in the midst of the four-game Vegas sweep.

Fleury was outstanding in the series, pitching two shutouts and finishing with an other-worldly save percentage of .977! I’ve long been a critic of Brayden McNabb, but the former King was a warrior in the series, and ultimately scored the only goal in the clinching Game 4. This Vegas season would continue with another matchup against a California team - could they keep up their stellar play?

SHARK HUNTING IN THE SECOND ROUND

For their next series, the Knights would face a team who stood as a polar opposite to Los Angeles: the San Jose Sharks, who preferred a speed-oriented attack, in contrast to the heavy style played by the Kings. Seeing as how this would match the Vegas identity, the winning team would have to simply find another dimension to their game and rise up. Both teams finished off their first-round opponents with a sweep, giving each group an entire week to rest before the “track meet” began. And they’re off…

Vegas wound up shaking off the rust better than San Jose, jumping on them quick and often to cruise to a 7-0 victory in Game 1. The next two games were more evenly matched, with each team winning once in overtime, before Sharks goalie Martin Jones recorded a shutout of his own in Game 4 to even things up. Now a best-of-3 series, Vegas utilized their depth and turned to one of their impressive rookies to help close out their foes from northern California.

When we set out to do all these hockey road trips, I always had my eye on North Carolina - I knew very little about the state (besides its tobacco-infused history), but it always seemed like a hotbed of sports success. Expansion teams in the NFL and NBA arrived in Charlotte at the dawn of the 1990’s, which set the stage for the NHL’s Hartford Whalers to relocate to Raleigh in the latter part of the decade.

But college basketball is the dominant obsession, as the region is filled with notable programs from Duke and the University of North Carolina, to NC State and Wake Forest. Hated as they may be in the eyes of many sports fans, I’ve always felt a fondness for Duke. Coach Mike Kryzezewski has built one of the most storied programs in the country, consistently keeping his team near the top of the polls and funneling a pipeline to the professional ranks (even though NBA success has often eluded these players). My high school years were filled with the images of Grant Hill and Christian Laettner winning championships for the Blue Devils, and the sight of Duke fans boisterously cheering on their beloved team during home games at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Duke’s campus in the city of Durham is just down the highway from the state capital of Raleigh - this path is affectionately referred to as “Tobacco Road”, denoting the popular crop produced by the state. I knew that my trip to see the Hurricanes would HAVE to include a visit to Duke, so I specifically focused on the college basketball schedule each year. Unfortunately, given the popularity of the program and the fact that virtually all of the tickets are reserved for students and season ticket holders, I would have to pay an exorbitant price to see them in person. For conference games against their ACC rivals, Duke tickets would go for hundreds of dollars on the secondary market - as a result, I found a non-conference game at the beginning of the schedule that allowed us to see the Hurricanes the following night.

One added bonus: my cousin Courtney was attending graduate school at North Carolina State, and had offered to give us a tour of Raleigh during our visit. But she would complete her two-year program in the spring of 2017, which pushed this trip a little higher up our list and prompted a visit in November 2016. And away we go!

The Vegas Golden Knights won the Pacific Division in their inaugural season. I cannot believe I just typed that sentence. Rather than dwell on my amazement, I’ll instead use this report to focus on some of the future Knights that I was recently able to see in-person.

As part of my “quest” to see a game in every NHL arena, I found myself in Toronto last month to check the Maple Leafs off the remaining list. I timed out the vacation with the start of the Ontario Hockey League playoffs, which provided the opportunity to witness many of the NHL’s future stars, including those drafted by Vegas.

SUZUKI IS GOLDEN AGAINST THE KNIGHTS

I started with the highest-profile Vegas prospect in Ontario, first-round pick Nick Suzuki. He had just completed an amazing regular season with the Owen Sound Attack, finishing fourth in league scoring with 100 points (42 goals, 58 assists). He and his teammates would square off in the opening round against the London Knights, a perennial OHL powerhouse who was in the middle of a slight rebuild after having won the Memorial Cup two years prior. We arrived in Toronto in the early afternoon, then made the two-and-a-half hour drive to Owen Sound to see the league’s smallest arena.

This was Game 2, with the Attack having prevailed two night earlier in the opening game. Right from the opening faceoff, Suzuki stood out - he played with patience, controlling possession for his line and creating several scoring chances with deft touch from his impressive hands. He finished the game with 3 assists, including the primary setup on the game-winning goal in overtime.

Two nights later, we would be in London for Game 3. While he didn’t have as much success on the road that he had in front of his home crowd, Suzuki was still dangerous every time he touched the puck. Owen Sound would go on to win again in overtime, then close out the sweep later that week - he was impressive throughout the series and while he lined up at center in the OHL, I think Nick Suzuki could be a dynamic playmaker on the wing in the NHL.

London's Evan Bouchard (in the penalty box) will be a 1st round pick in the 2018 NHL Draft

During Part 1 of this massive trip, my travel companion Chad and I found ourselves driving from Buffalo to Ottawa to Montreal to Vermont, before finally returning to the state of New York.  The Empire State Excursion would continue at one of the most famous venues in hockey history.

WEDNESDAY: 23 MARCH 2016

American goalie Jim Craig protected this net in the "Miracle on Ice" game

TOMAS TATAR COMES OVER FROM THE MOTOR CITY

My original intent with the quest to see all 30 NHL arenas was to use this as a way to see portions of North America that I might not otherwise visit. It would be a travelogue of sorts, and I would take every opportunity to see as many historical landmarks and tourist attractions as I could along the way. A quick glance at the list of NHL markets reveals a wide assortment of some of the most popular destinations around.

And then there’s Buffalo.

Everything I had heard about Buffalo said that it was a terrific place to live, with loads of young professionals choosing to relocate and start families there - but it wasn’t known for great tourist attractions, other than nearby Niagara Falls. As a result, I always planned to use my Buffalo trip as a chance to see as much of upstate and western New York as possible, with one extra wrinkle: Canada was close as well.

Considering their proximity, I figured I would visit Toronto and Buffalo on the same trip in order to knock two markets off my list. But there were so many other teams in the area that I wanted to see in person (specifically those in the OHL and AHL), and I found that I could go one step further by going the other direction around Lake Erie to see Montreal and Ottawa instead - thereby knocking out THREE teams along the way! What ensued was my most ambitious trip yet: the Empire State Excursion, which would see my travel companion Chad and I take in EIGHT hockey games in NINE days!

In order to maximize our vacation days in the spring of 2016, I used the Good Friday/Easter holiday as the bookend for the trip. We would fly out of Los Angeles on St. Patrick’s Day, and arrive in Buffalo just before midnight. The massive journey would commence the following morning…

FRIDAY: 18 MARCH 2016

Since the itinerary would have us driving hundreds of miles across two different countries - and also due to the previously-mentioned lack of tourist attractions - I knew my time in Buffalo would be limited. However, I made sure to begin the trip at the one local landmark that I had to visit: the Teddy Roosevelt Inauguration Site. A modest house on the outskirts of the downtown area, the museum houses a terrific display of artifacts relating to the 1901 World’s Fair, notoriously remembered as the site of President William McKinley’s assassination.

We've reached the halfway point of the season and the Vegas Golden Knights hold the best record in the Western Conference - just like we all predicted, right?

HANDING OUT SOME CONTRACT EXTENSIONS

There are a handful of events that every hockey fan should make their best effort to see: an outdoor game (did that), a Stanley Cup Final game (I didn’t want to pay the exorbitant ticket price), and the NHL All-Star Game. The midseason exhibition game has become quite the spectacle, as the league has taken great strides to present several special events throughout the entire weekend. I had planned on going for many years, but it seemed like all of the recent All-Star games were being hosted on the other side of the continent. In addition, the NHL did not hold an All-Star Game during the years in which their players would compete in the Olympics. As a result, Dallas had been the only city west of the Mississippi to play host since the 2005 lockout.

Neither Anaheim nor Arizona has hosted the All-Star Game, and the Los Angeles Kings were the hosts for the 2002 game, so I feared that it might not be near me again anytime soon. But 2017 was a special year - the 100th anniversary of the NHL - and the league was going to honor the 100 best players in its history during the All-Star break, so they needed an ideal venue.  During the 2016 NHL All-Star Weekend in Nashville, the league announced Los Angeles would host the following year - we were in luck!

I had every intention of going to an All-Star Game even if I had to travel, so this was perfect. I wouldn’t need to book a hotel or buy a plane ticket, so I could use the money I had saved to pay the seemingly inflated prices for tickets to the various events surrounding All-Star weekend. And were they ever inflated: once the tickets had sold out due to Kings season-ticket holders and assorted brokers/scalpers buying them all up, we were expected to pay around $500 to see it all.

But when the final weekend of January 2017 rolled around, I didn’t think about the money. No, I was only concerned with seeing the fabulous events. I would be a giddy hockey fan for a couple of days and I couldn’t wait!

As a longtime NFL fan living in Southern Illinois, I vividly remember the Rams moving from Los Angeles to St. Louis in 1994. After missing out on an expansion team, the Gateway City would now have a football team to call their own - unfortunately, this would be at the expense of the Rams fans in Los Angeles, who undoubtedly felt the same as the football fans in St. Louis did when the Cardinals moved to Phoenix in 1988 (as you can see, it’s a vicious cycle).

I followed the St. Louis Rams closely during those initial seasons, and I continued to keep an eye on them when I went off to college. I was ecstatic when they won the Super Bowl in 2000, and continued to watch them often when I moved to Los Angeles three years later. But I never actually made it to a game in St. Louis, even though I often considered going to see them during my various trips back home over the Christmas holiday.

But now it appeared the Rams time in St. Louis was coming to a close. By 2015, relocation rumors were swirling and it seemed like only a matter of time before they were headed back to their previous home in Southern California. Fearing that I couldn’t wait any longer, my travel companion Chad and I decided to attend the Rams final home game of that season - a Thursday night contest to be played a week before Christmas. But could we also include a hockey game during this trip?

We’d already seen games in St. Louis and Chicago, but Nashville wasn’t too far away. We’d yet to see a game in Tennessee and a trip in December would also allow us to see the Grand Ole Opry show at the historic Ryman Auditorium. The trip was perfectly set up, and I couldn’t wait to go!

The incredible run continues, leading to a change of heart from your humble narrator...

THIS TEAM IS FOR REAL

When I decided I was going to become a fan of the Vegas Golden Knights, I did so with the idea that I would be witness to a team slowly being built in the salary cap era. The Expansion Draft was supposed to stock the roster with average players, and I imagined the team was going to struggle to compete in the Pacific Division. Meanwhile, the team would trade away all of the players with expiring contracts and build a “war chest” of draft picks for the future.

But then the season started.

Two surprising wins on the road, followed by a very successful 7-game home stand, propelled the Knights into first place by the end of the season’s first month. They were the talk of the NHL, but that couldn’t possibly last. On top of that, the top three goalies on the roster all suffered injuries and a formidable road trip in November would seemingly bring the team back to Earth.

But it didn’t.

Yes, the team did limp through that road trip and fall out of first place, but they quickly rebounded once they returned to Vegas to continue their hot streak at home. Convincing wins over strong teams in the West (Winnipeg, Los Angeles, San Jose, Anaheim) helped to solidify their status as a serious contender.

But I still wasn’t convinced, until the final month of 2017 rolled around.

December would only feature five road games, but they were all in tough environments: I was sure the Knights would lose many of them, perhaps even all five. Instead, they won four of those five contests: a hard-fought shootout victory in Nashville; an impressive win in Dallas against a Stars team that had dominated Vegas during their two previous matchups; and back-to-back wins in Anaheim and Los Angeles after the Christmas holiday.

But what about their home record? Could they continue their terrific play at T-Mobile Arena?

In a word, yes. A five-game home stand against Eastern Conference opponents saw the team go 4-0-1, besting both the defending Stanley Cup champions from Pittsburgh and the Tampa Bay Lightning, owners of the NHL’s best record. The team was clicking on all cylinders and distancing themselves from the rest of the teams in the West.

As a result, I’m prepared to say something I never thought I’d say during the summer: this team is a legitimate contender in their inaugural season. But if the organizational philosophy was to seemingly blow off this season and the next to build for a playoff run in Year 3, how do they alter their course to continue winning now while also setting the team up for long-term success? I’ve got some thoughts on that…