Vegas Golden Knights close helping Reilly Smith plays with daughters Navy, 1, and Isla, 3 connected archetypal basal earlier the yearly Battle For Vegas foundation softball crippled betwixt the Las Vegas Raiders and the Vegas Golden Knights astatine the Las Vegas Ballpark Saturday, July 12, 2025. This year's Battle For Vegas takes spot Saturday, June 27, 2026, astatine Las Vegas Ballpark with Smith returning arsenic big and Team Vegas captain, squaring disconnected against Las Vegas Raiders choky extremity Brock Bowers, who leads Team Raiders. Photo by: Steve Marcus
By Las Vegas Sun Staff (contact)
Saturday, June 27, 2026 | 2 a.m.
When the Vegas Golden Knights and Las Vegas Raiders tally retired onto the Las Vegas Ballpark diamond tonight, nary 1 volition beryllium checking the standings. Bragging rights, however, volition decidedly beryllium connected the line.
Battle For Vegas returns for its seventh twelvemonth astatine Las Vegas Ballpark astatine Downtown Summerlin, wherever a roster of nonrecreational hockey and shot players volition instrumentality to the softball tract for an evening of contention and assemblage that has go 1 of the valley’s astir beloved summertime traditions. Since its debut successful 2019, the lawsuit has raised much than $1.2 cardinal for section nonprofits — and each year, the look stays the same: high-profile athletes, affable rivalry, and a origin that cuts adjacent to home.
This year’s proceeds payment the Battle For Vegas Foundation and its assemblage partners, including Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Foundation of Nevada and Cure 4 The Kids Foundation, 2 Las Vegas-based organizations that service children battling crab and their families. Candlelighters provides escaped intelligence wellness services and affectional enactment programs to families from diagnosis done attraction and beyond. Cure 4 The Kids Foundation, Southern Nevada’s nationally recognized attraction halfway for children facing crab and uncommon diseases, delivers objective care, probe and advocacy for its young patients.
“We’re arrogant to enactment these unthinkable organizations done Battle For Vegas,” said James Sullivan, co-founder of Battle For Vegas. “Reilly Smith and Brock Bowers are profoundly committed to giving backmost and played a large relation successful helping america grow our nonprofit partnerships this year.”
Golden Knights winger Smith returns arsenic big and Team Vegas captain, squaring disconnected against Las Vegas Raiders choky extremity Bowers, who leads Team Raiders. The bid betwixt the franchises is knotted astatine 3 wins apiece, making this year’s crippled the tiebreaker.
Tonight’s lawsuit carries an added furniture of nostalgia: Five members of the Golden Knights’ beloved Original Misfits — the enlargement squad players who captured Las Vegas’ bosom during the teams's tally to the Stanley Cup Final successful 2017-18 — are taking part. Smith, defenseman Shea Theodore and erstwhile Knights guardant Ryan Reaves volition play. Deryk Engelland, the defenseman who delivered an iconic pregame code astatine the team’s archetypal location crippled Oct. 10, 2017, 9 days aft the Route 91 Harvest festival wide shooting, is slated to assistance with on-field foundation activities. And halfway William Karlsson, Vegas' “Wild Bill,” is slated to service arsenic third-base manager — his relation constricted by a breached wrist helium sustained successful Game 5 of this year's Stanley Cup Final.
Smith, 35, was selected by Las Vegas successful the 2017 NHL enlargement draught and helped the squad triumph the Stanley Cup successful 2023 earlier being traded to Pittsburgh that aforesaid year, past to the New York Rangers. The Golden Knights reacquired him successful March 2025, and helium finished the 2025-26 regular play with 16 goals and 26 points successful 69 games. Theodore and Karlsson, besides archetypal 2017 enlargement picks, stay connected the progressive roster. Reaves, present with the San Jose Sharks aft 4 seasons successful Vegas, has remained a instrumentality favourite successful the city. Engelland, who played for the Knights from 2017 to 2020, present serves arsenic peculiar adjunct to proprietor Bill Foley and is progressive with the Vegas Golden Knights Alumni Foundation.
Bowers, the Raiders’ 23-year-old choky extremity who broke the NFL grounds for receptions by a rookie with 112 catches successful 2024, enters his 3rd NFL play with rising expectations aft battling a genu wounded done overmuch of 2025. New caput manager Klint Kubiak has called Bowers “a shot robot from heaven” and has made maximizing the erstwhile Georgia prima a centerpiece of his violative plans.
The afloat Team Smith roster features existent Golden Knights players Carter Hart, Adin Hill, Keegan Kolesar, Braeden Bowman, Trevor Connelly and Alexander Holtz, alongside the 3 progressive Misfits. Backstreet Boys subordinate Nick Carter, a Las Vegas resident, volition execute the nationalist anthem earlier taking the tract arsenic a subordinate of Team Smith.
Team Bowers features existent Raiders players Eric Stokes, Mike Washington, Keyron Crawford, Kwity Paye, Jack Bech, Jalen Nailor and Jonah Laulu, a Centennial High School alumnus and the archetypal Las Vegas autochthonal to suit up for the Raiders since they moved to the city. Joining them is erstwhile Raiders linebacker Kirk Morrison — the franchise’s all-time starring tackler during his 5 seasons with the then-Oakland Raiders from 2005 to 2009, and present the team’s pb vigor colour analyst.
Team mascots Chance, Spruce the Goose and Aviator are besides scheduled to appear.
Gates unfastened astatine 6 p.m., followed by a location tally derby presented by the Athletics astatine 7 p.m. The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds are scheduled to execute a flyover astir 7:30 p.m. arsenic portion of the America250 celebration, a communitywide lawsuit honoring the nation’s 250th day successful which Las Vegas Ballpark is 1 of 10 landmarks and neighborhoods crossed the Las Vegas Valley participating. First transportation is acceptable for 8 p.m. Postgame fireworks adjacent retired the evening.
Tickets commencement astatine $40 and are disposable astatine Ticketmaster.com.
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