By Sean Gallagher
I'm usually the guy who tries to eschew the "official" type events thrown by our beloved hockey team. I know that they need to have these things, but they tend to bring out the brassy, corporate stale side of the hockey business, whereas I prefer the gritty, grassroots type of event where the really (really) hardcore fans hang. Despite my normal desire to avoid these events, I felt the need to attend the 2007 BLUES DRAFT PARTY & PROSPECT EXTRAVAGANZA! at a place called "Lester's" tonight.
I should have gone with my instincts.
With the exclusion of the Game Time Prospect Department, which was either delightfully in its element or oblivious to the fact that it was surrounded by about 1,000 sweaty mouthbreathers, myself and the other GTers in attendance clearly felt we'd made a bad choice.
Not only was Lester's way unprepared for the amount of people who swarmed the joint, but the Blues fans in attendance were way unprepared for the names selected by their front office hovering around the War Table in Columbus. I have no way to properly convey all the feelings of "YEAH...oh wait, what?" that we felt, so I'll defer to the time-honored GT system of smartassiness:
 Top 11 Thoughts In My Head At The Blues Draft Party
11. Man am I glad that "Lester's" isn't owned by the GT vendor named Lester. I couldn't handle all the nudity.
10. At least we had a good draft last year.
9.  When they plan the next one of these things they need to remember that it only FEELS like there are only 10 Blues fans left.
8.  Jim Woodcock never would have let them give away tickets to the circus as a raffle prize.
7.  If I get asked to prove that I'm not the Answer Man one more time....
6.  Brad Lee is right, we did draft the blondest guy available!
5.  Lesson Learned: if you're a hot girl you can order 16 beers, hand over a bunch of raffle tickets as payment and avoid presenting your ID by saying, "I left it in the car, but someone checked it at the door."
4.   The COO of the Blues saying, "well, let's hope they're all superstars, right?" is not what we call a ringing endorsement on the draft.
3.  This place may be overcrowded and understaffed and the Blues may have just picked the next Jason Marshall, Marty Reasoner and Jocelyn Lemieux of the organization, but I just saw Bobby Plager, so I guess it all evens out.
2.  I can't wait to see the Red Berenson Cowboy again.
1.  Well, Jarmo Kekalainenaninen made all the draft picks for Ottawa for years and years, and look how great that worked out for them.
 -Sean "should I order my Ian Cole jersey now to avoid the rush?" Gallagher