NHL Draft Night

JV football plays on Thursday nights and Varsity plays on Friday. The NBA draft was Thursday and the NHL draft was Friday. Just saying.

This year's draft comes from the hockey state, Minnesota. One of the coolest thing the NHL does is rotate the draft around like All Star Games. This surely is better than what other sports do by always having it in the same venue over and over. Getting the same reaction to teams picks like you see in the NFL draft get's boring and old. The NHL gives fans all over North America a chance to go to the NHL draft.

Saying all that, I'm a hockey nut and you couldn't pay me to sit at one of these things. Holy Lord. The draft was in Raleigh a few years back (the Ovechkin draft, actually) and my dad asked if I wanted to go. Yeah, sure dad. And then let's go run a marathon.

To start out, thank the good Lord that once again Versus has decided to not use their own coverage of the draft rather Canada's version of ESPN, TSN's feed. Without too much surprise, there really is no one there and outside of a few notable stories, really has been a pretty boring draft.

Last year, you had Taylor (Hall) or Tyler (Seguin) as the big story. Hall went first to Edmonton sending Seguin number 2 to Boston. That's right, the current champs had the number 2 pick last year. The reason why is simple. Ownage. Phil Kessell, a good player no doubt, was traded to Toronto two seasons before for not one, not two but three first round draft picks. Toronto places no conditional tag on these first round picks, bombs and Boston is guaranteed an NHL ready forward.

Perhaps my favorite part of this complete ownage is what happened this past season. Toronto, tanking (thanks to in part to no first round pick and Kessell having a so so year), sends pending unrestricted free agent and offensively gifted defenseman Tomas Kaberle to Boston in exchange for a first round pick this year. Not Toronto's pick, but Bostons. Yeah, the one waaaaaaaay back in the first round, not the one Toronto earned at 9. Maybe one of the most lopsided trade stories I've heard in a quite sometime.

On to some commentary about the draft...

Immediately I want to start by saying how different this draft is. Last year I could name 4 guys I knew would be drafted high (Hall, Seguin, Cam Fowler and ROY Jeff Skinner). This year I seriously couldn't name a single one. And I love hockey. And know a lot more about it than you. Unless "you" happens to be Brooks. Then I don't.

So we start at the top and once again, you start with Edmonton. The Oilers take triple named Ryan Nugent - Hopkins. I haven't been able to confirm this, but I would like to officially start a rumor that Ryan is the illegitimate love child of Ted and Bernard.

Perhaps my favorite thing thus far about the draft coverage is the tweets running across the screen when players made comments about the draft. Ryan Whitney started the tweeting off with a great one liner.

"Welcome RNH to the Oilers. Now go get my tape."

If was tweet was RN-H instead, I would love probably taken a screen shot of his twitter account and made it my background on the laptop.

I would like to, at this time, rant about my hatred of hyphenated names, triple names and pretty much anyone who uses their middle name when identifying themselves. What is the deal with the hyphen? Can you not make your mind up?

This all started when I worked as teller. Many people would always ask me when making deposits what would happen if I made a keying error by one number and put the funds in another account. How would I know? Great question. Well, you also have to put in the first two letters of the person's last name as extra verification. So if the account is owned by Smith and the account is 123456 and someone with the name Johnson has the account 123457 and I key 123457 accidentally, the SM entered instead of the JO makes the deposit denied.

So here is the common bond of the last two paragraphs. People with hyphenated names caused me to flat out guess what those two letters would be. I mean flat out guess. No matter what, I was wrong. And I'd have to start allllll over again with the deposit.

There was one guy who came by the branch I worked at all the time with a deposit for his wife who had a hyphenated name and while he was awesome, it drove me crazy inside making the deposit. Ironically, I ended up working with her a few months later.

And just to wrap up name chat, my least favorite name of all time is Calgary Flame Curtis Glencross. When you hear it, it seems like it is a triple name, but it's not. His last name is Glencross. So this guy has a FAKE triple name. Can't stand it. I've even called it repulsive at times.

The next big story, in my mind, was at pick seven by the Thrasherless Winnipeg whatevers. Mark Scheifele made history being the first player drafted by the new....drumroll.....Jets. That's right, they also announced that this team would be the Jets. However, there was nothing mentioned about logos. Colors. Nothing.

So this kid gets up, stoked to be drafted seventh in the NHL draft, realizing his dream has come true, just watched 6 other kids run up on stage, shake hands with the commissioner (get your head out of the gutter) and put on a classic NHL sweater and what happens? He get's a freakin generic black and white jersey and hat with the NHL logo. You have to be freakin kidding me. That's the best they could do? Black and white head to toe. It looked like they were drafting from the California Penal League. Yup, that's where Rick Vaughn pitched.

As a Carolina fan, their pick at 12 was very important to me. A few minutes prior, they show this super jersey shore looking Canadian kid with his hair all spiked up wearing a light blue shirt with the top button undone and his tie kinda somewhat tied and I'm thinking holy crap look at this little prick. Turns out this pricks name is Ryan Murphy, the newest member of the Carolina Hurricanes.

I'm not going to break down what I think about the pick because all I could really do is copy and paste what I've read. What I can do is say that the best offensive defensmen in the draft, as I read, going to us (and yes, I can say us. I have the 42 tickets year in and out to prove it) brought a few interesting thoughts to my mind. Our GM Jim Rutherford, who I recently saw getting a massage at a rehab facility, HATES drafting D men in the first round (and this isn't opinion, this is documented) and the Canes need help stopping goals, not scoring them. But one thing I've learned in the close to 15 years the Canes have been here - Rutherford's track record speaks for himself. This time last year we were going "why is he drafting Jeff Skinner? Kid is too small to play." A Calder (ROY) trophy a year later and Rutherford once again looks like a genius.

This pick, like it has been for the last few years, was read by our most legendary player, Ronnie Franchise (By the way, another thing the NHL does better than anyone else with their draft. Let's the team make the picks. A true welcoming to the team. Love it).

But this does bring up another point I would like to make right now. Ron is 6 ft 3 in tall (unless someone thought it would be funny to make him taller or shorter on Wikipedia as a joke that is) which compared to you and I is pretty tall. But I would say this is probably below average for a professional athlete, especially when you consider basketball. But alas, not very tall. This guy has to bend down literally to where he looks like he has just been smacked in the back of the head to get to the microphone. I met Gary Betteman at the NHL All Star game. Dude is short. Maybe he decided where the mic height should be? Just redonkulas.

Another cool thing was the city of Minnesota booing EVERYTHING the Dallas Stars did while at the stand. They also booed the Canadians pick as most of it was in French and started a USA chant. Classic. Made me laugh.

Speaking of that, that guy spoke for like 20 seconds in french and then like 4 seconds in English. I really hope he wasn't relaying bomb codes north of the border. Hate to end that whole largest undefended border in the world record we have going with the Canadians.

Without a doubt the classiest and best thing of the draft was the Rangers letting the late and former member of the Minnesota Wild Derek Boogaard's brother, Aaron, make the pick for the Rangers. Huge standing ovation for him and a good ole "BOOOO" broke out, this time in a good manner, throughout the arena.

I'm ready to drop puck this fall. Can you tell?