The glitz, glamour — and grit — of the NHL draft
BUFFALO — It’s impossible to describe the National Hockey League draft without distinguishing between Round 1 and the rest, because, as I learned over the weekend, they have pretty much nothing in common.
The televised top round Friday is the glitz and glamour of the annual event. The six on Saturday are the grit.
Friday afternoon every street and park within a five-block radius of the rink was packed with fans in flip flops, teens and middle-aged execs in suits.
An hour to draft time, players, their friends and nerveracked families enter First Niagara Center. At ice level, teams make deals and finalize decisions, while the largest horde of media I’ve ever seen sought out sources for tips.
I knew the draft was underway when I heard the boos — first for NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, and then for the Toronto Maple Leafs, who owned the first pick. It’s an open question who the people of Buffalo hate more. It wasn’t long after Auston Matthews tugged a blue jersey over his head that I realized the three-minute countdown — the amount of time teams are supposed to have to make their selections — is fictitious. The video montages sandwiching each choice were fun, but, with 30 picks to get through, there was no way any of us were getting out of there in less than four hours. We didn’t.
I returned for Round 2 just after 10 a.m. Saturday. Aside from a few police cars, the streets around the arena were empty. Inside, the party evolved into a production line.
By the time the Hamilton Bulldogs had their first player called at 11:15 a.m., teams were taking less than a minute on average to announce their picks. The teens were quickly shuffled from their seats to the floor, the interview room and team suites before being handed back to their shellshocked parents.
Then, it was all over — a little more than three hours after it started. I walked outside to find families milling about, attempting to pin down their next steps.
For some of them, those two days were the best of their lives, the culmination of years of work and sacrifice. For others, the weekend was a disappointment.
Still, there was a single point almost everyone I spoke to agreed on. Whether you’re picked or not, the NHL Draft is surreal.