[Dnj_cards]

My Wife and I took the 4 hour drive down to Sunrise yesterday afternoon, to watch the first round of the draft. We had tickets for today as well but decided to attend just the first round. What a fun experience! It's something we've wanted to go see live and with it in Florida this year we made sure to take the opportunity.

Here's a look at the big banners hung outside the arena, we spent tons of time standing in line right about here waiting for autographs signings (will show this part last), and then waiting to get in. It was awesome to see such a of Hockey fans cheering for a wide variety different teams and we were pleasantly surprised to see a big gathering of Panthers fans!



After spending about 4 hours in lines, the doors finally opened so we rushed to the seating area and got a really nice spot. Once we say down we realized that we had left the camera in the car :frusty: so we had to take all of our pics from our cellphones... needless to say they didn't come out very well which was disappointing.

After the place started packing in we started chatting with the people behind us and found out that they were the grandparents and Aunt/Uncle/Cousins of #8 overall Zach Werenski which was pretty awesome! He actually came up to see them a few times during the draft which was pretty cool. We had about a 2 hour wait before the draft started but after standing outside in 100 degree weather in a hockey jersey for 4 hours, 2 hours waiting in a cold arena was awesome and time went quick! haha

Here's a couple of pictures from the draft itself, when Connor McDavid was selected. The pics are pretty bad so i am not going to make you scan through a bunch of terrible pics so i have only posted 3. There's a link below them to the rest of the pics if you wish to check out the rest that we got.








Rest of the pics can be seen here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/111919044@...4737201428

As stated earlier in the post , the Panthers hosted a free autograph signing during the fanfest that was put on before the draft started. The line-up was Bill Lindsay, Denis Potvin and Rookie of the year Aaron Ekblad.

Here's a couple of pics of the stuff we had signed.

Bill Lindsay - 2 Pics they provided



Denis Potvin - 2 pics they provided, pretty disappointed that they used this pic rather than when he was playing with the Islanders so ill definitely be turning at least one of these into a sweet Islanders card!



And Aaron Ekblad - 1 pic they provided and 2 of our custom Team Canada cards which knocks him off our wantlist!!

First a couple of picture we took,

Ekblad signing some Pictures with the Calder Trophy hanging out beside him.



and a close up of the Calder Trophy



And here's the items we got signed!





We had originally planned to try and get some autographs of the draftees while we were there, specifically McDavid since we need him for our set but by the time the draft had finished it was about 10:30 and we had a 4 hour trip ahead of us so we decided not to stick around.

All-in-all it was an amazing experience! The place was absolutely packed by the time the Oilers were on the clock, however it started clearing out by the mid-way point. I hope we have another chance to attend and draft because it was truly an awesome time.

[azicet]

Great experience! The autos look great, (is one of the Ekblads available?) We used to have "draft parties" here on LI when the Isles used to have their annual top 5 pick & would get some great autos of Luongo, Tavares & other players, (never had the official draft day at Nassau Coliseum though). Glad you had a great time.

[shierydana]

Cool experience! Glad you go to experience it! I've always wanted to go to a draft.

[androsfl]

I was at both days & overall I felt the Panthers did a poor job with the general admission seating for round one. The Upper Deck NHL Trading Card "Show" was also a bit of a joke. It was simply one small UD booth selling very low end RETAIL packs. Just my 2 cents of an otherwise fun weekend in Sunrise.

[bguzowski16]

Looked like a great time!!

[rayeates]

Awesome show and tell, Jon!!! Thanks for the pics and sharing the experience. It is always nice to see that the hockey community goes above and beyond to facilitate a great spectacle for the fans. Congrats on the autos!

Randi