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By Brad Lee
Because I know that Vincent Riendeau was traded for Rick Zombo and that Petr Nedved wore 93 in his brief 19-game Blues career (23 including the playoffs), I have a new Blues hat, T-shirt and two free tickets to a game this coming season. And Rob Ramage, Kelly Chase, Bruce Afleck, Mike Zuke and Jamal Mayers probably think I’m a fairly large dork.
I was one of the “lucky†participants in the fan trivia challenge at the Blues OFFICIAL draft party June 22 at Lester’s. Lord knows how many unofficial parties there were scattered around the city (over/under: two). They picked five fans who e-mailed in saying they were interested in the trivia and five alumni/current players who apparently didn’t have better plans on a late June Friday night.
As Gallagher reported below, the place was a madhouse. I had just flown back into town from a business trip and got to Lester’s right at 5 p.m. and I didn’t have a seat at the bar the first 15 minutes I was there. It was quickly wall to wall people by the time the draft started at 6. The trivia was supposed to be three five-question rounds for each team. It seemed the little trivia game was planned as a way to kill time in between the Blues’ first two draft picks at No. 9 and No. 24 in the first round. When the Blues traded down to No. 13, they moved the trivia back until after the team took a guy from Europe named Lars, possibly the drummer from Metallica â€" but don’t quote me on that.
In the middle of the trivia, the Blues traded up to pick No. 18. So the trivia was put on hold while the Blues announced the drafting of American-born defenseman Ian Cole. Chase, who was across the table from me, seemed a tad frustrated with the organeyezation’s (Canadian phonetic spelling) first two picks. “Can’t we take a Canadian? Fuck.â€
Some fans booed because the talented but sometimes motivationally-challenged center Angelo Esposito was available. The place started getting louder with most people talking amongst themselves. Emcee John Kelly decided to call the trivia off after two rounds with the fans ahead 8-6. Somehow we didn’t know Doug Weight’s nickname is Weighter instead of Dougie and that Rob Ramage was the first defenseman to lead the Blues in shots in a season. But I’ll always have Zombo and Nedved and my free hat.