Thread: Meet the players

i got inside around 6:30. stood in line for kopi and williams but the line did not move. we were told that we wouldn't make the 9:30 cut off so we moved to the quick (ironic!) line. my brother spotted bob, jim, bernie, nick, and dale so i went and got their autographs and some pics. great guys!

my brother bailed on the quick line and tried the brown line. no dice either. we decided to try our luck checking out the stanley cup instead. we got in at 9:30 and saw it for less than a minute before they threw it back in the case and wheeled it off.

i'm disappointed that i never got any of the players' autographs but i still enjoyed myself. hell, hockey is officially back! game on!

I went with only one mission, to get my Mom's "Quick" milk bottle signed. So we headed straight over to that section, knowing we would probably have to wait. What we didn't realize was that we'd be trapped in the middle of the seating section for almost the entire time. Usually at these things we split up and move to faster lines to get more signatures, or one of us would get the free hot dog while the other waited, etc. But it was difficult to do that when it meant having to step over twenty people with laps full of memorabilia to get out of your row of seats. We ended up getting the autograph around 9 (though by that time Quick was really in no mood to chit chat) but that was all we got. Tried to see the Stanley Cup, waited about twenty minutes but got closed out. Oh well.

Couldn't tell if they were doing any raffles/VIP passes like last year.

There was a guy in our section hawking the Luc commemorative sticks, hockey pucks, and pictures. Considering the sticks were free and I'm pretty sure he didn't take that picture, that kind of rubbed me the wrong way. He was making sales, though. I'm not sure how much of this always went on at these types of events, but it struck me as strange.

got there around 5:30ish and the line was already pretty long but it ended up moving pretty quickly to get inside. i decided to head for voynov, lewis, and doughty first. i was only a few rows from the top so i didn't wait long. voynov was wearing some awesome shoes and when i tried to tell him that he looked a bit confused and smiled so i'm not exactly sure if he understood me? i was having the players sign my ticket from game 6 of the finals and voynov took what i thought was the prime signing spot, which kind of cracked me up because i had pictured having a king who was more of a favorite sign there. but oh well. i also thought it was funny how long it took him to sign. he put a lot of care and concentration into that signature! i didn't really say much to lewis and really, he seemed a bit reserved. then i got to doughty, who was all smiles, and we talked a bit about the upcoming season and how ready to go he feels. none of it felt rushed but obviously i tried not to take too much time since there were so many people waiting.

next i went over to see clifford, martinez, and penner. by that time their section had filled out quite a bit so i had to wait maybe 35-40 minutes and things also did feel a big more rushed. clifford seemed to try and sneak peeks at the game while still being polite to the fans. martinez was so formal-- "hello. nice to meet you. how are you doing? thank you for coming out. take care." and then penner. he's so cool, man. you wouldn't think the dude's been sitting there signing autograph after autograph, meeting person after person. he's so friendly, funny, approachable... he definitely made the wait worth the while. great guy.

at that point, the lines for quick, brown, and kopitar all looked like a nightmare and i didn't think i'd even get to meet any of them before time ran out so i opted to go see the cup. never a bad decision. aaaand that's it. sure it would have been cool to meet with more of the guys to sign the memorabilia while i had it with me, but still, i'm grateful they took the time to do it.

Originally Posted by Penalty_Box23

You saw those too eh? They didn't do the best job of rolling them up did they

Here come the complaints about how poorly the banners are rolled up. Geezus...

Originally Posted by ManchesterFig

I understand that the banners on the left side are the retired numbers...but what about the three on the right?

Are the old Division and Conference title banners still on the wall? If so, why three? I have read on here that there will be a Cup Champ and Conference Champ banner, but what is the third banner for?

2 of them are the smythe division and campbell conference banners. i could see the chevy logo on them when i was looking up at them. the other banner, i'm pretty sure, had the current logo on it. not completely sure what that one was, probably the western conference champ banner and then they'll raise the stanley cup champ banner in between it and the canadian flag on the 19th.

and ya, all the retired jerseys and old division and conference winning banners are still on the wall, too.

i went and it was sort of a disappointment. i get that they didn't have to do this since the CBA wasn't ratified yet when they agreed to do it, but oh man, were the lines so long and kind of disorganized. we waited in the williams, kopitar, nolan and king line for about 2 hrs. williams talked to my daughter which was nice. then we tried to wait in the richards, gagne, mitchell line and got put in the overflow line, seated in a far section from the regular group of people who were "guaranteed" to get in. we were 2 rows from being called over but then it was 9:30 and one of the ice crew dudes said the players were done and were going to leave. i (and a bunch of other people) rushed over though and i managed to get willie mitchell to sign my game 6 ticket. real nice of him to linger a bit longer and squeeze a few more autos in.
then we waited outside the aisle for penner and i think martinez but they never came out.

got home pretty late and my 3 year old was a messsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss because it was way past her bedtime. lol.
all in all, i think i'll have better luck following the sage advice of liceroni and going to tsc to get the rest of the sigs that i need for my ticket.

for what it's worth, the staples staff (concessions, people in purple--ushers?) were very cordial and welcoming and it's nice to see them so happy to be working the event.

Yeah, people brought young, young kids to this event and it was really hard - 2+ hours of sitting, Bailey or not, is hard on a kid. At Hollywood Park, at least they could run around a bit and parents could keep an eye on them.

I think, overall, this event was well organized, i.e. what they did what they had planned to do. I think having us sit in sections was less chaotic (in previous years when MTP happened at Staples we were lined up out in the concourse). But as said earlier there were fewer players in each line, which made the lines go faster. This system took a bit of the fun out of the event, and made for really long waits.

Originally Posted by lunchbox

for what it's worth, the staples staff (concessions, people in purple--ushers?) were very cordial and welcoming and it's nice to see them so happy to be working the event.

yes, i noticed this as well. everyone was so friendly and going out of their way to greet us and make sure we were having a good time.

Originally Posted by TooCool

Quite possibly the absolute worst MTP ever.

I got to the Brown, Scuderi, Fraser line at 6:30 PM when players arrived. I got my autograph at 9:20 PM. The lines did not move, period. By the time the players were signing my things and taking a picture, they were annoyed and bored and couldn't wait to leave.

What a bummer. Wow. That is all I care to share right now.

That's pretty much what I expected to happen.... and why I didn't go.

The Kings can NEVER get anything right when it comes to these sort of things.

Originally Posted by FlyBono24:2614980

Originally Posted by TooCool

Quite possibly the absolute worst MTP ever.

I got to the Brown, Scuderi, Fraser line at 6:30 PM when players arrived. I got my autograph at 9:20 PM. The lines did not move, period. By the time the players were signing my things and taking a picture, they were annoyed and bored and couldn't wait to leave.

What a bummer. Wow. That is all I care to share right now.

That's pretty much what I expected to happen.... and why I didn't go.

The Kings can NEVER get anything right when it comes to these sort of things.

What is it? What's the actual problem? Is it the lack of experienced staff that can't handle large scale event planning? Or is it simply the nature of the beast? Meaning, there's just so many people and so few players, that MTP is naturally a slow, long process?