In November of 2017, Amy and I wanted to do something fun for our birthdays. Las Vegas had been a fun option, and now that they had a new hockey team, we decided to check out our first Away game together, the plan being to travel to Vegas and watch our Sharks take on the Knights in the new T-Mobile Arena. I called them up a few months in advance to see if they had a live radio feed available that I’d be able to tap into for the game. The front office didn’t have any concrete answers, so I messaged the team through their online interface. Several days later, I finally received an email from a PR person stating that yes, they did indeed have a system that would play the live play-by-play during the game and switch over to the PA system during stoppages and intermissions. After a few more back and forth emails to doubly and triply confirm that this system was working and functional, Amy and I started fully planning our trip.
It turns out that the PR person was misinformed.
I posted this story and summation of events up to the r/hockey subreddit for community support, and you can read part 1 here:
Rant from a Blind Fan (opens in new window)
Copy/pasting the story here if you don’t want to click the link and read through all the ridiculous comments and responses to my story from people who do not understand ADA law.
Rant from a Blind Fan – Radios in all the Rinks
I’ve been a Sharks fan all my life, and lost my vision completely a little over 3 years ago suddenly from surgery complications. Despite that, I was still determined to attend games even though I would be completely unable to see my boys in teal again. I found out that SAP Center has always had a live transceiver in the building, allowing people to bring their own FM radios to listen directly to our in-house play-by-play with absolutely no radio delay whatsoever. This allowed me to enjoy games with my friends again while still being able to be amongst fellow fans at the games, even helping out when something wierd happens on the ice and being able to quickly relay the radio info to everyone around me. I figured an in-house radio feed was the norm for all rinks in the league.
My girlfriend and I even attended the entirety of the World Cup of Hockey in Toronto last year as Air Canada Centre officials confirmed that they had the Edge device, a radio they give out to guests that request them that do the exact same thing as SAP Center. We built our entire trip around that bit of tech and it worked beautifully for every game and the guest services people were top-notch at helping me when anything went wrong. Again, having tech like this or an in-house feed seemed like the norm for all rinks.
Now enter T-Mobile Arena for the Vegas Golden Knights. We attended the game on Nov. 24th, the Knights hosting our Sharks. It was our first time cheering on our team in an away game and we were really looking forward to it. In early October, I contacted both T-mobile Arena and the Golden Knights through their primary online help request forms, asking if they had a no-delay in-house radio feed. T-Mobile Arena never answered me, but a PR person from the Knights themselves confirmed that they indeed did have assistive listening devices that played back the audio from the PA system, but also tuned in to the in-house radio play-by-play. It took a few emails to get this confirmation, but satisfied we went about and set up a big trip to Vegas for Thanksgiving centered around attending this game.
Upon arriving to the game, all the trouble started when the guest services guy we talked to had no idea what we were talking about when I requested the assistive listening device, and then had no idea about play-by-play through the device when he actually found them. He had me wait around for an answer about the devices when some gruff guy started speaking loudly about the devices not having play-by-play near me. It took me a while to figure out that he was addressing me, so I turned towards his voice and began asking questions. The asshole was evidently the guest services supervisor and just walked away from me before I could say anything. I spoke to the air and a passerby had to come up to tell me that he had walked off. I got pissed and complained directly to the guy behind the counter and had him call his manager down.
It turns out that after going over our email thread, the PR person was misinformed about their devices. They gave me all the wrong info and we set up our whole trip around it. So they lamely give us the radio feeds for Vegas, both the FM and AM stations. We make our way to our seats and watch the Vegas opening shenanigans while trying to scarf a Shake Shack burger while fiddling with my radio. The FM feed is nothing but static. The AM station is nothing but silence. Even more angry, we head back to the guest services booth.
We missed the entire 1st period fighting with all the managers and supervisors. T-Mobile Arena does not have a live in-house radio feed. They said none of the lounges nor boxes had audio for the game. NHL policy restricted us from sitting directly with or near the announcers. They keep saying they have provided everything legally required by the ADA, but of course only have focused on the mobility impaired. A supervisor actually tried to give me a close-captioning device thinking it would help, and I immediately called for her manager.
He was finally able to bring us to the Jack Daniel’s Lounge for the rest of the game. We ended up sitting in a corner of the bar by a TV so my sighted girlfriend could watch the game, and there was a quiet audio feed from the TV play-by-play which I could barely hear, but worked for the rest of the game. We essentially bought super expensive tickets just to sit around in a sports bar completely missing the live experience. This was a total failure across the board from the T-Mobile and Golden Knights staff, and we will never be returning to this arena again.
How many rinks in the league actually have live radio transceivers? Why does the NHL not have an accessibility policy making it a requirement to satisfy ADA law just as there are wheelchair accessible sections and assistive listening devices and closed captioning for the hearing impaired? We blind people can love hockey too, and it is up to the rinks and teams to be able to provide a fully inclusive and accessible experience for all fans in attendance, not just pride themselves for doing the absolute least they could do for compliance. T-Mobile arena has braille signage. That’s their only visually impaired accommodation and it is absolutely useless. What would be the best way to get the league to listen and push for accessibility overall?