The Blackhawks visited Las Vegas to play the Golden Knights on Thursday; it would be a late night in Vegas… late night in Vegas… late night… Vegas… hmmm… I’ve had a few of those over the years.
It was our first & only family trip to Vegas; my parents, me, my brother, and sister all stood in a suite at New York New York. I guess we were all 21 at the time, so maybe early 2000s. Of course, I had been before, with my dad when I turned 21, and my friends too; this was going to be fun. It was still kind of “old Vegas”… meaning, cheap eats, coins in the slot machines, etc. We had a blast. When the rest of the family went to bed, my brother and I made sure we were going to get the most out of our last night in the desert.
Our favorite place to gamble over all the years going to Vegas has always been Flamingo; this is where we sat and played that evening. Pai Gow, Blackjack… We were drinking cranberry and vodkas, which turned into easy cranberry, which turned into a splash of cranberry, which turned into straight vodka. I think we were down to our last handful of chips when we started turning a corner. Before we turned that corner, we were approached by a couple “ladies of the night”; we joked with them that we didn’t have enough money for a room. They said let’s go back to your room; I told them hope you don’t mind if our parents were in the room… haha. OK, back to the tables. We ended up at the roulette table; I was betting $100 per spin on black. We walked out with some black chips.
Forget about late night; when we got back on the strip to walk back to our hotel, it was morning; maybe I should have called it Early Morning in Vegas. Walking back to the room was… fun; we were drunk. I was saying hello to every person we passed; if they didn’t respond, I told them to F off. My brother was rolling. We got back to the room; we were all rolling. That was a fun night. OK where was I going? Oh yeah, Blackhawks…
I wanted to watch it; when I checked in, it was 5-1 Golden Knights. I went to sleep; can’t exactly stay up all night like I used to… shit, I can’t even make it through a late night Hawks game. Maybe I needed some cran vodkas to help me. Anyways, the Hawks made a game of it, still coming up short, losing 7-5. I didn’t watch any of it, but just the fact that they came back and outscored a good team the rest of the game… at least they didn’t throw in the towel; they’re still fighting. This is a good part of the culture to establish now, even in the early stages of the rebuild. Bring that with you when they become good and… postseason won’t be far behind. Until then, we wait… until the Hawks are good again… until the next late night in Vegas.
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