Draft day madness

Warning: the following contains Leafs hate, mild Gary Bettman bashing and lots of insanity. Viewer discretion is advised.

(a view from inside the Bell Centre. I could see better than this, but this is basically where I was sitting. The Habs table was third over from the first row nearest us)

Okay... let's see.... After agonizing over Roger's 3rd set blergh and eventual 4th set demolition of Kohlschreiber, I then spent most of the early afternoon shopping with Sarah from California, Dani and Kate. I finally bought a draft shirt and a draft keychain thing after wondering if it was possible to buy everything in the store. Yeah. I live here and I still go nutso for Habs stuff. After that we went out for coffee and then headed over to Ye Olde Whatsits pub where met up with more tweeps to get draft tix.

(so this is how Charlie Bucket from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory felt when he got his golden ticket.... awsomeness. Only, there was no awesome chocolate at the Bell Centre. Just Burke. And there's nothing awesome about him)

Sarah (the other Sarah from Boston) and I exchanged voodoo dolls for Sox socks and a Sox keychain. I AM UBER PLEASED with my lovely Sox stuff. UBER PLEASED. I'll get pics up soon.

At 6 we headed to the Bell Centre and I got mopey because the last time I was in there was when my Habbies were playing....First off the teams have to announce who's going to announce their picks. Silly it may sound, but it gave us the fans an opportunity to boo the crap out of the Bruins, the Leafs and the Flyers. And Bettman of course. At some point a very loud "Ole" song went up. Oh they must have known that those grumpy Ole-hating-Sens-fans were in the building (yeah, I'm still bitter about that Sensland! It's an AWESOME song to sing. Stuff it).

Huge cheers for George Gillet who said some stuff before the draft started.

(it was nice knowing you, George. We'll miss you!)

Booing ceased and then commenced when Bettman came back and announced that the Isles would get to pick. Lots of yapping ensued and then finally the Isles picked... Guess who? Me! Just kidding... They picked Tavares obviously:

(Tavares is thrilled and it's Hedman's "dream come true" to play for a crap team. Awesomeness)

Lots of yapping and crap then ensued again. I mean seriously, does it really take that long to decide who you're going to pick? You have a list of the guys you want for crying out loud. Pick the guy already!

I took the boring bits as an opportunity to look for GMs. I spotted Gainey and I could easily see Brian Burke's head (hmm, maybe it wasn't that hard to spot his huge head). Someone pointed out that the Caps peeps weren't drinking any of the stuff on their table which made me yell at them that we were only trying to poison Burke (JUST KIDDING. I would never actually want to poison Burke). I also spotted "Clod Joolee-ehn" hovering around the Habs table before the draft started. ICK. Sarah from Boston spent most of the time spying on the little kids that run around between the tables. Apparently the Bruins kid disappeared and the Hawks kid was offering brownies or cookies to the Bruins table. Traitor!!

I know Grrrreg has a "Gary Bettman Booing Index" and I want to say, we broke the scale. We flipping broke it tonight. Bettman announces who's getting what pick and all that crap and when the Coyotes come up he says "the 6th pick belongs to the PHOENIX Coyotes". Oh yes, Bettman emphasized the word "Phoenix". Twerp. Well, I booed him along with the rest of the building for that. And cries of "Hamilton! Hamilton! Hamilton!" soon followed. Can we all say "douche"? Jeez, you didn't think we'd notice that, eh, Bettman? HAMILTON! HAMILTON!

This was followed by HUGE boos for the Leafs. Even *I* booed Burke (this is coming from someone who won't even stand up when her team scores at a game). I couldn't even hear who Burke picked. Once I realized who they had picked, I was very sad. Nazem Kadri is a Habs fan. He cheered for when we an interview of him (from some point in time) where he professed his Habs love. And he was booed very loudly when he was announced as the Leafs 7th overall pick. Damn you Burke. I hate you. I felt SO bad for the kid because he looked absolutely miserable up there. Poor guy. It's okay.... should you ever leave the Leafs, I will like you. Until then, hope you get smushed up.

Oh and I loved those "1967" chants going on while the Leafs were busy doing their stuff. No sarcasm here. It was hilarious. Oh Montreal, how I love you....

FINALLY after almost 2 hours, my Habs got up and announced their pick. Couldn't hear at all who he was because the whole building erupted. Turns out we picked Louis Leblanc. Doing the no-homework that I had done, I don't know much about him other than he's a bit older than me and he'll be going to Harvard next year. No idea if he was the most talented player available, probably not, judging from what I've heard, but I know enough to know that the draft is a bit of a crapshoot anyway. So yeah, welcome to Montreal, Louis. It wasn't the nightmare I'd thought it'd be for you (just for poor Kadri). So it's good.

(welcome to Montreal, dude)