Kings Celebrate 50th by Hosting Star Studded All-Stars

The Exhibition Center had a full slate of counter programming for families and fans who made their way downtown. If the memorabilia on display wasn’t enough, the trophies given at every NHL Awards Show were on display, as well as the crowning achievement for every hockey player – Lord Stanley’s Cup. Isn’t it just beautiful? Not into the hardware? A collector instead? There’s plenty of player cards, and really merchandise of all kinds (all things end at the gift shop.) Fancy yourself a hockey player? You can test your skills at a variety of labs, shooting at cardboard goalies or stop pucks in a virtual reality game. If you’d rather just look like one, mannequin type players were set up so you could put your head on top, or at a set of lockers you could try on actual players gear. It looked particularly endearing when the small children tried on their idols clothes. Small rinks for the small humans were set up all around, and one large rink for the mascots to play their contests. The mascots truly were the highlight of the Fan Fair, participating in a series of showdowns – Western Conference vs. Western Conference – to the delight of everyone in attendance. An argument could be made that the highlight was, of course, of the interviews and chances for autographs with some of our favorite hockey personalities. Kyle Clifford, Jarret Stoll, Drew Doughty, Taylor Hall, Nic Dowd, Andy Andreoff, Tanner Pearson, hockey Hall of Famer Darryl Sittler (not to be confused with Daryl Sutter, which I definitely thought when I was skimming the press release), and Hall of Famers Serge Savard, Yvan Cornyoyer, Denis Savard, and Rob Blake. Many of the panels were narrated by our very own Bob Miller, who said it was his favorite event. 

“I was involved with interviewing some Hall of Famers last night,” Miller said, “for 4 hours, we had a good time. Fans could ask them questions, they were telling stories and it was really uplifting to me, I walked out thinking ‘that really went fast’ you know when you’re having fun, 4 hours you have to do this, but we were having fun and all of a sudden it’s over and it’s been good.” I spoke to Miller less than a day before he was taken to the hospital for a small stroke, and had actually asked him if the schedule this season was grueling on him considering his quadruple bypass surgery the year before. Laughing, he replied ,”I should have looked at that schedule a little closer I didn’t realize, how condensed it was going to be it’s like every other day, so it’s a little exhausting at times but I’m glad to be back.”