Here's how it looked on TSN:
I remember the booing of Bettman in that video being much much louder as well as the cheering for the trade.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Draft Day Moves and the Secret Fantasy of Every Devils Fan
The Devils made a couple of moves at the NHL Draft this year to sure up their goaltending future hopefully for many years to come. They traded their first round pick (number 9 overall) to Vancouver for Goaltender Cory Schneider.
Draft Day
Wow. What a day last Sunday was at Prudential Center for the 2013 NHL Draft.
I really didn't know what to expect, so I want to spend a few sentences (or paragraphs) on the mechanics of it all. These are things you might not see on TV watching at home.
Fan Fest
The Devils had a fan fest out on Championship Plaza with the theme being the Jersey Shore. Early summer, in New Jersey, that seemed fitting. It was sponsored by Stronger Than The Storm, which is an ad campaign here promoting the rebuilding of the Jersey Shore after last October's Hurricane/Nor'easter. There was a boardwalk set up against the adjacent buildings where the Devils had free boardwalk-type games (try to get the ball into the small hoop, try to knock down the milk bottles, etc.) complete with a sand pit on the other side of the boardwalk. There was also a sand sculpture around the hockey player statue in the plaza, music, food/drink, and street hockey set up on the street in front of Championship Plaza. They had promised a Ferris Wheel which was being constructed during fan fest and the B Street Band which I didn't actually see out there.
Pre-Draft
Seating inside the arena was announced as General Admission in the upper concourse, with fans being allowed inside at 1pm. Season Ticket Holders and their groups (who seemed to occupy most of the tickets) had access around the side of the building at 12:30. The first couple hundered people from that line were given free upgrades to reserved seating in the lower level. The draft stage and video screens were set up on the south end of the arena (the "open" end with the concessions that look back to the action; the end where the Devils defend twice). The concessions on that end were all closed up, but everything else was open. In the Upper Level, it was nothing special except for a table where season ticket holders could pick up commerative tickets from the event. Of course, seating on the end behind the stage was closed off. In the lower level concourse, that end was home to different hockey card vendors as well as team banners for each team in the draft (in order to block off the seating area and concessions). The rest of the concourse was business as usual except for the NHL's trophy collection on display in the corner next to one tower and the Stanley Cup in the corner next to the other tower (in that larger concourse with the big window behind the Fire Lounge).
Draft setup
I mentioned the stage being on one end. The other end had the different TV sets for the different TV coverage and interview area with reserved seating behind it. There was also media tables on the floor and media all around the handicap and ledge seating in the lower bowl. The middle of the arena floor was 30 tables for 30 teams participating in the draft with the potential draftees sitting in the club seats with their families. Each time a player was picked, you'd see him scream with excitement, hug his family, and run down to the floor to meet his new team and receive a jersey. The video display would show highlights of the kid if it was an early round pick and show logos of the team picking on all of the scoreboards and LED ribbons. There was a large video screen behind the stage showing the draft order for that round with some sponsor logos or team logos as they picked. They also had the 30 team's logos on a couple of banners above the stage where a spotlight would shine on the team that was "on the clock".
That is the basic mechanics of the draft. In later rounds, things moved a lot quicker, and more and more people had left. There weren't many of us who had stayed until the end. Gary Bettman was booed every time he went up on stage (which was only through the first round). The Rangers, Flyers, and Penguins were booed for every time their team was mentioned. And the Devils still received cheers all the way until the end.
See all of my pictures from the NHL Draft.
Leave a comment or drop me a line at DyHrdMET [at] gmail [dot] com. Your comments will fall into a moderation queue.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Welcome Back Draft Party
I've never been to the NHL Draft. Year to year, I don't know who the prospects are. I don't fully understand the Junior leagues (are they pro or semi-pro? are they cutting class in High School in order to play?). But this year, I have more interest in it than normal. This year's NHL Draft will take place in my "home" arena, where I've been a season ticket holder for the past 2 seasons. That would be enough to get me to watch the draft, where I can see how it looks inside the arena that I know so well. The Devils sweetened the pot by giving free tickets to each season ticket holder (2 of them, and allowed us to request additional tickets, of which, they gave us 2 more). So I'm going to watch the NHL Draft in person this year. I'll admit, I have no idea what to expect.
The only other time I had any real interest in the NHL Draft was in 2005. You remember 2005. That was the year with no Stanley Cup Playoffs. Long story short, there was no season in 2004-05, no playoffs, and the lockout wasn't settled until that July. The NHL draft was rescheduled for a Saturday afternoon, July 30, 2005, and it was the first event held by the NHL after the season had been cancelled.
The Devils held a "Welcome Back/Draft Party" to welcome the fans back into the good graces of the organization and of the league. It was just as it sounds. Welcome the fans back to hockey, and come watch the draft together on the big screens at Continental Airlines Arena. Of course, being the hockey-starved fan I was after a lost season, I went. And there were many many others like me who made the trip to East Rutherford on that Saturday afternoon. So many that the Devils and arena staff weren't prepared for the large crowd.
The Devils had set up the arena floor (no ice surface after a year of hockey, or just no ice surface during summer break) with different activities including floor hockey for the kids, autographs of a few players, and a podium near one goal where Stan Fischler and Ken Daneyko were talking about the draft. They also gave everyone a food voucher to use at the 2 center ice concession stands, a voucher for a free ticket to one of two early-season games, and had a hockey equipment sale set up underneath the stands. I wish I had taken a camera to this because I really don't remember all of the activities they had set up for the fans. I really didn't care. It was just good to be back in hockey.
I came in about a half hour before the draft started, and Stan Fischler was just reciting some sort of information at the podium. I really got the sense that nobody was listening to him. Ken Daneyko was with him. The Devils put the MSG Network coverage of the draft up on the big screens (MSG was showing the TSN feed from Canada, where they had real coverage, and MSG would interject their own analysis for the 3 local teams). Around the time the draft started, Stan Fischler left (he re-appeared on MSG about 30 minutes later), and Dano was left alone on the podium. Dano was still new at the TV thing, and he didn't look comfortable up there by himself. Matt Loughlin (the TV "host" of Devils telecasts at the time) arrived shortly after the draft started and took over hosting the event (not for TV, but for the fans in the arena).
This was the draft in which the Devils selected Nicklas Bergfors in the first round and Sidney Crosby was the first overall selection by the Penguins. In fact, quite a few first round selections from that year are still playing in the NHL. I remember Matt Loughlin getting Bergfors on the phone to conduct an interview for the fans in the arena.
I don't remember much else about the draft itself (I know it was conducted over 2 days, unlike this year's draft which is being squeezed into a single day). But at the arena, there were a whole lot more Devils fans than the team had expected. Food concession lines had stretched from both center ice concessions straight across the concourses, into the seating bowl, and all the way down to the playing surface. That's one sight I wish I had a picture of (I think it was before smartphones, and even my dumb phone at the time didn't have a camera). I think the Devils/arena had to call in more staff to handle the crowds.
I think they got somewhere around 8,000 people on a Saturday afternoon in late July to come watch the NHL Draft on the big screen and just be around hockey for the first time in over a year. And that was the only time I was even remotely close to the NHL Draft.
Leave a comment or drop me a line at DyHrdMET [at] gmail [dot] com. Your comments will fall into a moderation queue.
The only other time I had any real interest in the NHL Draft was in 2005. You remember 2005. That was the year with no Stanley Cup Playoffs. Long story short, there was no season in 2004-05, no playoffs, and the lockout wasn't settled until that July. The NHL draft was rescheduled for a Saturday afternoon, July 30, 2005, and it was the first event held by the NHL after the season had been cancelled.
The Devils held a "Welcome Back/Draft Party" to welcome the fans back into the good graces of the organization and of the league. It was just as it sounds. Welcome the fans back to hockey, and come watch the draft together on the big screens at Continental Airlines Arena. Of course, being the hockey-starved fan I was after a lost season, I went. And there were many many others like me who made the trip to East Rutherford on that Saturday afternoon. So many that the Devils and arena staff weren't prepared for the large crowd.
The Devils had set up the arena floor (no ice surface after a year of hockey, or just no ice surface during summer break) with different activities including floor hockey for the kids, autographs of a few players, and a podium near one goal where Stan Fischler and Ken Daneyko were talking about the draft. They also gave everyone a food voucher to use at the 2 center ice concession stands, a voucher for a free ticket to one of two early-season games, and had a hockey equipment sale set up underneath the stands. I wish I had taken a camera to this because I really don't remember all of the activities they had set up for the fans. I really didn't care. It was just good to be back in hockey.
I came in about a half hour before the draft started, and Stan Fischler was just reciting some sort of information at the podium. I really got the sense that nobody was listening to him. Ken Daneyko was with him. The Devils put the MSG Network coverage of the draft up on the big screens (MSG was showing the TSN feed from Canada, where they had real coverage, and MSG would interject their own analysis for the 3 local teams). Around the time the draft started, Stan Fischler left (he re-appeared on MSG about 30 minutes later), and Dano was left alone on the podium. Dano was still new at the TV thing, and he didn't look comfortable up there by himself. Matt Loughlin (the TV "host" of Devils telecasts at the time) arrived shortly after the draft started and took over hosting the event (not for TV, but for the fans in the arena).
This was the draft in which the Devils selected Nicklas Bergfors in the first round and Sidney Crosby was the first overall selection by the Penguins. In fact, quite a few first round selections from that year are still playing in the NHL. I remember Matt Loughlin getting Bergfors on the phone to conduct an interview for the fans in the arena.
I don't remember much else about the draft itself (I know it was conducted over 2 days, unlike this year's draft which is being squeezed into a single day). But at the arena, there were a whole lot more Devils fans than the team had expected. Food concession lines had stretched from both center ice concessions straight across the concourses, into the seating bowl, and all the way down to the playing surface. That's one sight I wish I had a picture of (I think it was before smartphones, and even my dumb phone at the time didn't have a camera). I think the Devils/arena had to call in more staff to handle the crowds.
I think they got somewhere around 8,000 people on a Saturday afternoon in late July to come watch the NHL Draft on the big screen and just be around hockey for the first time in over a year. And that was the only time I was even remotely close to the NHL Draft.
Leave a comment or drop me a line at DyHrdMET [at] gmail [dot] com. Your comments will fall into a moderation queue.
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