The NHL All star weekend took forever to get here and, as expected, it went entirely too fast. It was a HUGE hit, not only for the city of Raleigh but for the NHL as a whole. Everyone around the league was a buzz and I have read nothing but praise for the host city. I am proud not only of the fans in the area and the city but of the franchise. I can only hope this means things like the draft and the All Star game come back sooner then before I die. I am still in awe of the game and the skills competition and of the fun that was the fantasy draft on Friday night. I was even overwhelmed with how great of a job the Guardian  project 30 people did with exposing the fans to something completely new, Super Heroes based on all 30 of the beloved NHL franchises. Oh yes a fun weekend was had… oh yes!!

So without dragging out my intro to the weekend let’s get started on day by day recap shall we? I even threw in some pics I took of the weekend. With any luck I will try and get up a gallery of more then the handful I have here b/c I took over 1000 pictures last weekend with the beautiful Mrs. GeekJock’s camera.

After I took my son to his skating lesson early Friday afternoon, it was off to the Raleigh Convention center home of the NHL Fan Fair. The Convention center had the big layout inside with all sorts of fun, and outside on the Fayetteville St. Mall they had it blocked off and a ton of things going on including, exhibitors, player and celebrity autographs and food/beer. But who are we kidding, I was there to see the inside exhibits and try and score some tickets to the All Star Fantasy draft going on that night! The line to get in the hall was fairly long but the organizers had their stuff together and the line went fairly quick for a line as long as it was and we were in there in roughly 20 mins tops. When we got to the bottom of the stairs we were greeted with a couple of members of the Hurricane’s Storm Squad. The Storm Squad are basically in the stands cheerleaders, who, from uneducated commenters like those in Edmonton take a ton of flack for what some teams have done with this idea. Some teams took the idea of the indoor hockey cheerleaders and turned them into glorified Hooters chicks on the ice to scoop up the shavings during time outs. They will go down with their shovel’s and do a spin or two and bend over for the eye candy they are and get off the ice. Look good? Sure. But give them grief not the Storm Squad. The Storm Squad not only are always glassily dressed (a little mid drift showing but nothing drastic and never in shorts) but they are not only cheerleaders in the arena but enormously successful charity workers out side of the RBC center. They do a ton with and for the Kids and the Community Foundation, the Hurricanes primary charity of choice. So bite your tongue when you try and take issue with our Storm Squad. Ok back on subject… We were stopped before going into the Fan Fair by 2 members of the SSquad for roughly 2 mins. I am assuming this was due to the audio presentation resetting in the walk in hallway to the Hall. This hallway was my first glance at the Guardian Project 30 in public.

The Entrance Hallway. Guardian Pictures on both walls to either side.

The Hallway was impressive. All the pictures of all 30 Guardians stood roughly 10 feet tall and were beautifuly drawn. I got a couple of pictures of these and the presentation was great to listen to, but what was more impressive was that my 4 year old son and 7 year old daughter were pointing at some of these and screaming. “Hey daddy look, THE LEAFS, oh look there is the BRUIN, that must be the I

SLANDER!” I was stunned. I considder my kids so so fans of the sport but to see them actually recognise the logos and/or cartoon representations of the teams into super heroes was truely amazing. I won’t eggagerate and say they knew them all but what I did notice was they knew a handful and the ones they didn’t know the HAD to know who they were. This little bit of curiosity and excitement for the teams and heroes gives the Guardian Project 30 a Win for the 1st impression. Now to see what is around the corner in the hall. 

When we came into the hall we were absolutely amazed at the quality of the booths and activities set up for the kids and adults alike. The NHL hit one out of the park for sheer number of things to do under one roof and I knew it was going to keep us busy for hours. We went to the first activity spot and waited on line for the 3 hockey activities. This one had

"Look the Islander Daddy!"

 an accuracy shot, dangling (stick handling) drills and hardest shot booth to see how fast your slap shot is. The kids loved them all and I even got my stick going on all three of these and had a blast. I didn’t do too well with the accuracy shooting, I think it was a combination of my lack of accuracy, the race vs the clock and being passed pucks by an attendant rather then having them sitting there for me. Yet, I still loved doing it. I did the stick handling course in 23 seconds under the 30 they give you on the clock, which I was pretty happy with. And finally, the GeekJock slap shot clocks in at a tick over 56 miles per hour. Not too bad considering not on skates or on ice and no real head start. Those, and well, normally my shot wouldn’t break a pane of glass so I was happy with what I did. Seeing that most people who were on line in front and behind me weren’t the hockey types I got some good ooohhhs and ahhhs when I did it so ego successfully buffed! I’m just glad no one was around who knew better hahah.

Future NHL star

The booth took a bit of time to get through so I didn’t really want to stand in another one of those lines again but since we were right next to the Guardian booth, and my kids wouldn’t stop asking (another good sign for the project) we went over there to take in their booth presentation. The booth had some goodies with posters and such and TV’s talking about the project and some behind  the scenes things but the big attraction was being able to put on some virtual reality glasses to see some images come to life. My kids are a bit nervous when it comes to those things but I got to put them on and boy was I impressed. I probably could have sat there and watched it 2-3 more times but the kiddies were pulling me and the wife to the next ohhh ahhh station so it was time to move on. Again my mouth was open with the quality of work the Guardian people had done.

We then decided to take a lap of the hall to see everything the place had to offer. There was a decent size store for jersies of the 2 NHL teams. The blue jersey for team Lidstrom and the red for team Staal. Each team had some jerseys made up of the team captains and the 2 alternates which were decided before hand. The other players would be pick later at  the fantasy draft but this is one thing that I was severely unimpressed with. Even after the teams were picked unless you went at the arena to one of the shops in there for pressing the numbers and letters on you couldn’t find anything other then the captains and alternates jerseys. The NHL should have had teams of people and companies at the ready so that the second a player was taken the teams were hard at work pumping out the jerseys of those guys for sale the rest of the weekend. In stead I was told the NHL didn’t want to be “stuck with them” from a manager of the store in the fan fair. A bit of a missed opportunity in my eyes. Not only would these have flown off the shelves but all you would need to do is send them to the players home arenas after the fact and they would be gone in one home game. Easy peasy. Shame on you NHL for not having this readily available and done. Can you imagine how many Skinner jerseys would have sold on Sat and Sunday? WOW.

We next got to see the NHL awards and the Stanley cup on display in its only little corner. They had the other trophies encased in an area around where the cup was so you could check them out while you wound through a Disney World sized maze to get your free picture with the cup. We had done this a few years ago and didn’t want to waste 2-3 hours just for this picture so we skipped it. What we did do though, was go to the area where upper deck was making your very own hockey card. So the family and I got to get our pictures put on our own card. Everyone from upper deck was awesome. So polite, smiley and just a pleasure to talk to. I did notice this all day with all the areas. It was like the second happiest place on earth! (we all know what # 1 is, if not google it) While we were on line waiting for the hockey card pictures I took a few laps with my son around the hall. First to just see what was going on, and well honestly I had hoped that since the wrist bands for the Fantasy Draft were supposedly going to be given out at “random” during the day, I figured a cute as hell 4 year old on my shoulders could only help my cause. I even saw the occasional celeb and player walking through the hall going to an interview here or there or possibly even checking it all out for themselves. I also caught a spot the NHL network was doing with a hockey card vendor where they had Jeremy Roenick going up there to “Trade” a card with the guy and have some banter. JR is such an amazingly nice and charismatic guy. He yucked it up a bit with the fans and signed some autographs and had smiles for everyone. See even when retired NHL players are the best in the business!

"It's not so much me as it is Roenick. HE'S GOOD!" --- Swingers

Once we got through the hockey card line it was just about time for them to start letting into the area/bleachers for the fantasy draft. Alas, my quest for a bracelet was unsuccessful but I was able to stand about 3 feet behind the podium where the NHL Network guys were broadcasting and was front and center between Weekes and JR on camera, which prompted a ton of texts saying “Smile idiot you’re on TV!!!!” It didn’t turn out to be inside the fantasy draft area but the view I had was still great and the banter among the fans was probably as much fun as among the players inside of it.

I couldn't resist putting another great Guardian 30 image in here.

After the draft I caught up with the family who were just getting off of another line to do some hockey drills booth. They had been standing there the entire time Iwas watching the draft so Mrs Geekjock gets a huge Mommy of the year award for that patience. We had driven separate cars with the intention of her leaving if I got into the draft but the fair was so great that we couldn’t pull the kids away to leave at all. But, after meeting up with them again and hitting a booth with some real goalies (I think it was Bridgestone?) and another radar on your shot (53/56 mph again Woot woot) it was time to hit the road. After all sat was the main tailgate day and the thing I was looking forward to the most… The Skills Competition!

One Last chance for the GeekJock to break 60... Nope this one ends up hitting 56.

Hope you enjoyed the day one recap. The rest of them should be a bit shorter, but still as fun and filled with pictures!

Stay Tuned!

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