When it comes to playing pickup games, some sports are easier to organize than others.

To play soccer, you just need a ball and something to act as a goal. For touch football, a ball and an open field will do.

Hockey can get a little more complicated. If you’re playing in the street, sticks and nets are required. In the winter, there’s the challenge of finding ice time and needing additional equipment like skates, pads and helmets.

The Vegas Golden Knights, which became an instant hit among residents in one of America’s most popular tourist destinations, came up with a fun program that takes away pretty much all those obstacles.

In April, the Golden Knights — more specifically the LosVGK branch of the team — began the Cascaritas program. Much of what you need to know about Cascaritas comes in the definition of the word: “Cascaritas” means a pickup game.

While traditionally associated with soccer in the Hispanic community, LosVGK — created to engage the Spanish-speaking community, which makes up one-third of the Las Vegas population — began Cascaritas to put sticks in kids’ hands and get them playing ball hockey.

“I really wanted to create something that would be kind of like the next step for kids and for families who were interested,” said Benjamin Thomas, the Golden Knights’ director of Latino marketing and outreach who created the program.

That is where Thomas’ heritage kicked in. Born and raised in Las Vegas, his Mexican family roots were accustomed to playing pickup soccer games throughout his childhood. Therefore, he applied that concept to hockey to make the sport more accessible to Hispanic kids.

There are no requirements, or limits, to the number of kids who can play at one time. The only equipment needed are the sticks, the goals and pinnies, another soccer adaptation, for each team to wear. The Golden Knights provide all that equipment, so the kids just need to show up to play, free of charge. It is a pickup game, after all.

The Cascaritas program holds regular outings at parks, but then also hits up a lot of the community events. Cascaritas has proven popular with how simple it is for the kids to participate. Games are free flowing and there’s no set score to reach. Thomas said the biggest thing is to make sure the kids are having fun.

“I had thought about it actually for quite a long time before launching it,” Thomas said. “When I started with the Vegas Golden Knights [in 2023], I really understood that if hockey is going to gain popularity in the Hispanic community, then we really need to flip a cultural switch. Something we have to tap into, something that makes this sport fun and enjoyable for the kids to play and really putting sticks in hand.”

The ease of playing is the drawing card. While there is the NHL Street program, which brings a high-energy feel to a more formal hockey setting, Cascaritas is just like a bunch of kids from the neighborhood getting together to burn up all that extra energy.

Thomas and the Golden Knights have taken the Cascaritas show on the road, hitting up events in Reno, Nevada; Lake Tahoe; Idaho; Arizona and even deep into Mexico. A year ago, the team held traditional hockey clinics in the Mexico City area, as well as Monterrey, and had a street ball version that helped ignite the Cascaritas program.

Cascaritas not only ties Thomas’ culture with a sport he grew to love while attending UNLV and watching the school’s ACHA club hockey team compete, but it fits in perfectly with his role with the Golden Knights and the community.

Not only does he live within a couple minutes of Lorenzi Park — where he often spends a few hours on a Saturday opening the ball hockey rink and keeping things organized for the kids to spend time enjoying the sport — but the program also provides an outlet for his son.

“In my own case, I have a sixth grader, my son. He plays soccer, but he loves hockey,” Thomas said. “So, these Cascaritas are also like a great way to get him out and get him to play some hockey. And I don’t have to put him in two travel-team sports. He can kind of dabble in the different sports that he likes. Applying that same logic, I know a lot of kids in the Hispanic community, they’re playing soccer, they’re boxing, playing baseball, but they’re part of our community and they like hockey. Here’s the safe place for you to come try hockey.”

Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc