After two years in Stateline, Nevada the Tahoe Knight Monsters have made an incredible splash into the local community. 

"It brings good crowds and brings good energy basically to South Lake Tahoe itself," says resident Richard Spyker.

Starting in the 2024-2025 season of the ECHL, the Tahoe Knight Monsters brought professional ice hockey to Tahoe, finding success in making the Tahoe Blue Events Center their home. They've become the affiliate team for both the Vegas Golden Knights and the Henderson Silver Knights. The excitement for the team is strong after two seasons and fully incorporating themselves as a part of the local community.

"It's really cool, the amount of draw of the excess people that have come in here just to go to the games and all the locals that normally don't spend as much time downtown as they normally would," says resident Joseph Wightman.

And it's not just the local fans that have built support behind the team. The Knight Monsters have partnered with a number of businesses in the area that have seen an increase in traffic on game days.

"Our Kingsbury location specifically on game days or game weekends, we notice an increase in sales. it's been a great partnership so far," says Justin Kaplan, Owner of Tahoe Bagel Co.

Tahoe Bagel Company has been working with the Knight Monsters since their first season. This year Kaplan opened a third location in the Reno area and partnered with the Knight Monsters because of their involvement with the community.

"The organization itself, they're, they've really integrated themselves into the community, which has been great. That's, that's a foundation of our company as well. We do a lot of sponsorships, and we try to be a part of the community as well. So, them having, sharing those same values has been integral for us." 

Partners like Melanie and Kevin Hubbert, the owners of Cold Water Brewery, have a promotion "Goal Patrol" which is directly tied to the success of the team on game days.

"We have a really fun activation. So every time the Knight Monsters score a goal, we have a Puck in the Net pretzels you get. So one of the Knight Monsters team members will go and pass out to a lucky row a coupon to come into the restaurant. So it's a really fun, exciting moment in the game where everyone's on their feet and excited to celebrate the Knight Monsters and then we kind of continue the excitement with giving them a free coupon," says Melanie Hubbert, co-owner of Cold Water Brewery.

"It's been going really well, people come in and fuel up before the games and people really like getting the coupons. We're lucky enough that the Knight monsters score a lot of goals so we get a lot of activation with our promotion," says Kevin Hubbert, co-owner of Cold Water Brewery.

The Knight Monsters have also built a sense of community with the local outreach the team has done in the Stateline area. The team highlights and supports local youth programs to get kids excited about hockey. They bring kids out to the Knight Monsters games, interact with the players during warm-ups and have the opportunity to step onto the ice with the Chuck-a-puck cleanup crews during mid-period activities. And when the Knight Monsters excel on the ice, local youth hockey teams get to celebrate with them.

"When a player on Tahoe gets named ECHL player of the week, they actually donate a case of pucks from in Glasgow who supplies the league's pucks and they get donated to a local youth hockey organization in the in the Lake Tahoe area. So, we've been fortunate that we've had five different players the week so far. So a lot of a lot of pucks going to the community," says Brenden Paul, Broadcast Communications Manager for the Tahoe Knight Monsters.

And with their dedicated fans in the Reno-Tahoe area, the Knight Monsters have kept people coming back throughout the season, regardless of the Tahoe weather.

"Especially on like the Wednesday, Thursday night games like when most people wouldn't be coming up here. We do still have our slow season obviously, but during the wintertime when even the storms were going on and they were still playing and still drawing a crowd out there. So it's definitely surprising and also very cool," says resident Joseph Wightman.

"When there's no snow like today, and people want to get out, they can always go to the ice rink and watch some good hockey," says resident Richard Spyker.

The Tahoe Knight Monsters are currently battling it out with the Kansas City Mavericks in the first round of the Kelly Cup playoffs.

You can learn more about the Knight Monsters here.