Vegas kicked off the Stanley Cup with a bonkers pregame show

More in store for Game 2 of the Final?

In their first season, the Vegas Golden Knights have wowed the hockey world with their play. As a result of that play, they’re now up a game in the Stanley Cup Final.

They’ve also wowed us with highly involved pregame shows. This was the one the Golden Knights put on before Game 1 against the Capitals on Monday night:

Maybe we’ll get another one in Game 2 on Wednesday, though it’d be hard to recapture the magic of the moment before Game 1.

“Conquering enemies by land, sea, and air, the West belongs to Vegas,” a narrator said at the top of the Game 1 ceremony, noting the Golden Knights’ previous series wins against teams called the Kings, Sharks, and Jets. If there’s one defining theme of this presentation, it’s that it’s Hockey Game of Thrones. A bunch of skaters in red capes represented the Capitals, and they all got dropped by a shining hero in golden knight armor.

A laser catapult blew a hole in the ice and scattered some of the Capitals’ stand-ins, and then the knight finished off the last guy in his way, presumably saving the day or something.

There’s no way the cannonball thing has ever been done before.

World-famous boxing announcer Michael Buffer then introduced the starting lineups.

Intricate, elaborate pregame shows are a Golden Knights thing.

As befits a team from a city that loves to put on a show, the Golden Knights have put a lot of effort into their in-arena presentation before playoff games. The pregame shows follow a similar arc all the time: A person dressed as an actual golden knight meets some kind of mascot representing the other team at center ice. A sword fight ensues, and the golden knight kills the other team’s champion, who then “dies” and/or gets airlifted to the rafters. Thousands of people cheer and wave towels as fire shoots out of an imaginary castle. Players then skate through an inflatable knight helmet and onto the ice.

Before a first-round game against the Kings:

Before a second-round game against the Sharks:

And before a third-round game against the Jets:

Unquestionably the most entertaining show someone can watch in Las Vegas.