Well, yours truly was the unlucky one that was stuck back at the studio to make sure that the draft party from Local Heroes and the draft itself went over the air on Team 1200.....I guess if I went on a 2 month vacation, I can't complain when someone else does as well.... :-)
Now, I'm sure I'm like a lot of you when it comes to the draft....just tell me who the Top 5 is and who my team picked and I can head to the bar content that I didn't miss anything, but since I had to be there for the whole first round, I had to keep myself entertained.....so I present the live blog....
7:00 - It's here....what is Garth Snow going to do? Is he going to make the no-brain slam dunk deicision and take Tavares or is he going to piss off the fans in the arena and the thousands at the draft party back home by picking Matt Duchene? My sadistic side wants to see Number 2 to allow for a riot inside the Nassau Coliseum....it would make for better TV....think about it, it could be an aside..... "Alright guys, let's update you on the Duchene Riot happening on Long Island...."
7:06 - Ryan Rishaug interviews Tavares/Hedman/Duchene just minutes before the Number 1 pick is to be announced....The theme of the interview is that none of them know who's going No. 1....All of them are understandably nervous...At the end of the interview, Rishaug asks all of them, "Do any of you know who's going No. 1?", only to be greeted by awkward shimmying by the teenagers.....Ooops, that one didn't quite pan for Ryan as he thought it might have....
7:09 - Gord, Pierre and Bob analyze the big Three and talk about how there's actual intrigue as to who goes Number 1 this year.....I agree, I just don't really care about who goes after number 10....
7:14 - Gary Bettman walks up to the podium to a huge chorus of boos as to be expected....then decides it would be a good idea to hammer out a couple words in awkward French, which gets a couple more boos.....
But he gets the crowd back on his side with a couple cheap pops by mentioning it's great to be in Montreal....crowd instantly cheers.....sort of like you would have seen in wrestling in the 80's when the good guy would tell the crowd that he was gonna "kick some butt here in.....Montreal!" Woooooo!
7:17 - The man of the hour, Garth Snow, is finally coming to the podium to make his selection....who is going to be? He tries his hand at some awkward french with a quick Bonjour (Awkward French Count = 2) and then picks John Tavares...the fans are going crazy at the Nassau Coliseum...at the end of the day, he had to go here even if management thought that Duchene was the better play....look at the excitement that he's already bringing to the franchise and he hasn't even played a game yet....LOL at the high-five at 4:06 from the Conan look-alike....he's wayyyy into the draft for my liking....
7:24 - It's reported that Chris Pronger has been traded to the Flyers in exchange for Joffrey Lupul, Luca Sbisa and a couple of first round picks. Wow! I think the Ducks got an amazing deal here picking up another talented forward, a blossoming defenceman and big picks....Meanwhile, the capologist for the Flyers gets another challenge in trying to make this team competitive and under the cap....
7:25 - Brian Lawton makes his way to the podium to take Victor Hedman....says some nice words for Montreal only to get booed....I guess they really want Lecavalier there....
7:34 - TSN shows a clip of Brian Burke talking to Bob Gainey abou the Lecavalier rumours....Burke informs Gainey that his team has been in the news about rumours that Lecavalier might be going there....Gainey says nothing and walks away.....Burke is the man! The little mind games are just hilarious....
7:35 - Bettman comes out to announce Pronger trade only to call Joffrey Lupul, "Jeffrey Lupul"....(shaking head)
7:38 - The Colorado contingent comes to the podium and Greg Sherman, their new general manager decides to add to the awkward French total (Awkward French Total = 3), but his French is so bad that they have to applaud him purely on effort....the kind of applause you would give for the person who struggling in last place of a 5000 metre track race who is still on the track while the winner is already in the shower with their gold medal on....
They take Matt Duchene....James Duthie interviews him and we find out that Duchene could be considered the Rain Man of Hockey Sticks as he knows the exact curve of seemingly everyone in the NHL....if he pays that much attention to something so trivial, you know that he'll pay attention to every detail while he's on the ice....no wonder some scouts project him to be the better long-term play....
7:45 - Atlanta picks Number 4 and Don Waddell comes up to the podium....he'd like to thank the people at the draft party at Jillian's in Atlanta....I looked it up just to see if I could get some info online....it's actually a Dave and Busters, so once the 10 Thrashers fans in the house see the pick, they can celebrate with a little Skee-Ball....The Thrashers take Evander Kane...
7:49 - Kane talks to James Duthie and admits that he's looking to be a 50 goal scorer in this league....good for him to have the stones to say what's on his mind instead of going for the safe answer
7:56 - The L.A. Kings are up next....Leafs fan await with butterflies in their stomachs....will they take the younger Schenn? The Kings select.....Brayden Schenn....a collective "Nooooooooooooo" can be heard from Leafs Nation and the big boss isn't too happy either....
8:02 - Phoenix makes it way to the podium to pick Oliver Ekman-Larsson, but not before it squeezes in a sponsor mention....I wonder what the going rate is for a sponsor mention at the NHL Draft?
8:04 - Gord Miller proudly announces that Ekman-Larsson is the first European to go in the draft....only for Pierre and Bob to fight over who's going to correct him first about the fact that Hedman is in fact Swedish....
8:09 - Brian Burke steps up to the podium to make the pick for the Leafs and is interrupted with a large amount of boos, then the camera pans out to the one guy decked out in Leafs gear with the Leafs flag.....I've admitted many times that I'm a Leafs fan, but I'm with everyone else when it comes to "that guy" syndrome....there always seems to be that one "Leafs guy" in every social situation imaginable.....(Aside: A Great site if you wanna know if you're that guy.....http://youmightbethatguy.wordpress.com/) The Leafs take Nazem Kadri...
8:11 - It really hasn't been a good last couple of weeks for Bryan Murray and it doesn't get any better when TSN chooses to expose him talking to Brian Burke about Nazem Kadri....Burke plays the bully role and Murray becomes the victim in a 10 second exchange....
8:14 - Kadri and Burke join Duthie at the desk for an interview....Duthie asks Burke whether he's disappointed about not being able to move up with Kadri sitting right in between them....Burke of course says he's not disappointed, even though everyone clearly saw his head shake after pick 5...Kadri not off to a good start with the Leafs....
8:26 - After Dallas takes Scott Glennie at 8, it's now Ottawa's turn at 9 and they take Jared Cowan....for those who don't know much about him, here's the analysis from tsn.ca....
"He's a Memorial cup winner, has overcome his knee injury, but most importantly he has big body presence. Ottawa won't be easy to forecheck against Cowen and Erik Karlsson." - Pierre McGuire
8:34 - Duthie asks Bryan Murray about Dany Heatley....Murray says that if he can't trade him by July 1st, he fully expects Heatley to be a part of the Senators for next year....riiiigggghhhhtttt....'cause that's what the team needs, a guy who has clearly stated that he doesn't want to be there....
8:35 - Edmonton takes Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson....his dad goes for the high-five, but Junior leaves him hanging for a good 3 seconds....they settle on the hug instead....Magnus is going with the Killers look tonight and it suits him pretty well.....could be the best dressed just based on uniqueness....that's what this draft needs....where are the different outfits on these players like you would see at the NBA draft?
8:50 - Nashville takes Ryan Ellis and now it's up to Minnesota at 12, but they're taking some time....someone announces that they have one minute left and the fans jeer....they have little else to care about at this point....
8:53 - Minnesota trades its pick to the Islanders and take local product Calvin de Haan! It's the shocker of the night so far.....it garners the most "criticism" of the panelists as they say that it might have been a reach to pick Calvin here....unlike the NFL and NBA drafts, there are no bad picks in the NHL draft, hence the quotations on criticism....
I had a chance to meet him as he came into the studio earlier this week and he's a very nice and soft-spoken kid, but sadly, I mistakenly thought he was another intern....he's got the face of a 14 year-old as well, so he's going to be carded around the U.S. until he's 40...and it's true when someone suggested that all he needed to do to hide is find the nearest telephone pole....
All that being said, there are a lot that suggest that he has the skills to make it one day, so I wish nothing but luck in his adventures....
9:06 - Darren Dreger has been giving updates all night, but I didn't notice until now that underneath his name, they have his Twitter address instead of "NHL insider"....Twitter has officially hit Canada now.....It's only a matter of time before I start tweeting....oh the humanity!
9:09 - Buffalo has already taken Zach Kassian at 13 and Dmitry Kulikov is taken at 14 by the Panthers....Kulikov gives hugs to the family, while the crowd whistles at what appears to be Kulikov's girlfriend....You stay classy, Montreal....
9:15 - Glen Sather is shown at the Rangers draft table with a cigar hanging from his mouth....(shaking head yet again)
9:17 - Anaheim is up next and I thought we were going to have another Bobby Clarke/Claude Giroux moment as the person announcing Anaheim's pick hesitates for a second, but all dreams are dashed when he announces Peter Holland....Holland seemingly comes from the 500 level to make his way down to the stage....Do they really need to stick them up in the stands?
9:18-9:34 - Minny takes Nick Leddy and St. Louis take David Rundblad.....my patience for the draft is running very thin now....
9:35 - The fans have been waiting for this all night....it's time for the Canadiens to pick....there's a 2 minute delay as apparently the whole front office has to be on the podium for the pick....then Trevor Timmins (director of player development and recruitment) comes to the mic to make the pic.....He spits out some unbelievably awkward French (Awkward French count =4) to pick hometown hero Louis Leblanc at number 18.....why do they have someone who clearly can't speak the language on the mic to make that pick? But it doesn't matter because the fans go wild as they have their hometown boy in the fold....
9:44 - The Rangers pick at 19....their presenter decides it's his turn to abuse the French language by thanking the Montreal faithful in french for a couple of words before quickly bailing on that idea and thanking them for their great "hospitality" instead of "hospitalité" (Awkward French Count = 5)...they take Chris Kreider...
9:53 - Calgary is supposed to pick next here, but a trade is announced that Calgary has traded this pick to New Jersey for their first rounder a couple picks later and a later round pick.....this got my colleague, the Bear, to suggest right away, "How much do you think that's a little compensation for the Sutter move?"....he's got a point....
9:57 - Gary Bettman has another trade announcement, but nobody is there anymore since the Canadiens have made their pick....
Then Sarah walked into the room to meet me as we were gonna head out to the market for a drink after and I lost all focus on the draft after that....hey, what can I say? She was looking good and had on this incredible vanilla cream stuff that drew me in....that's an unstoppable combination....
Plus, the fact that she's just as big of a sports fan as I am is awesome too, so we debated about how the draft could be better-run....She made three recommendations that I agree with....
1) Instead of wasting time by having each team bring up 10 representatives and then each team thanking the city for their hospitality, just let the Commissioner announce each pick, much like David Stern and Roger Goodell do for their respective leagues.....However, after the "Jeffrey" Lupul incident, maybe that might not go over as well as I think....
2) Instead of having the first-round prospects sitting in the stands, can't they sit in a green room like the NBA and NFL drafts too? It's slightly embarassing to have to see Peter Holland go down the entire lower-level section just to get to the floor so that he could get on stage....
3) Can the panelists from TSN actually make some constructive criticism of these players? They make it sound like every player from the first round is going to be in the league for at least five years, and that is simply not the case....You see much more production value in the NBA and NFL drafts as well as to how they have to improve themselves by using game footage to show the fans their weak points....
Alright, for the full round-up, here's the list from tsn.ca....
http://tsn.ca/draftcentre/feature/?id=9157
Enjoy the weekend!