After stopping in the busiest Starbucks I have ever seen in my life, I hurried through the mass of people to get over to the St Regis. As I was passing Rockefeller Plaza I saw the Today show setup and thought I better get a picture. It wasn't until this time that I realized all of what had been going on in Boston since the previous night.
When I arrived at the St Regis there were more local Kings fans waiting, which was great! I met up with Matt Moore, Mike Riordan, Tin Ghiorso, Jeff Fletcher, Mike Charles, Audrey Moore, and several others who were there to show support.
Since the media room was setup inside due to the pending presser, most of the media was comfortably inside where they could sit down and work rather than having to stand outside all day. Nick Monacelli, Bryan May, and Dan Elliott were out front as it turned out Nick was being sent to Boston to cover the scene up there. Before he left we were able to get a shot with the News10 crew shown above. We also started what, according to Matt, was the longest and loudest SAC RA MEN TO chant he had been a part of.
One of the common themes for the day was the reporters getting reassigned to Boston, so it was mostly just the Kings fans hanging out front. We were also joined by Tom Huddle about this time as he joined us fresh off the plane.
Some of the highlights of the morning were meeting fellow Kings fans who started to pop up. There were a couple guys in town for business who stopped by to chat, a girl who was in town for 10 weeks as part of her medical internship, and Allegra Green, who worked for the Monarchs early on. The most fun for me, however, was when we noticed a couple standing off to the side kind of watching us and smiling. Tim noticed the gentleman had a white hat with "SK" on the front and asked if they were Kings fans. Turns out Madge and Pete were from Citrus Heights and had planned their vacation to coincide with the BOG Meetings many months in advance! What a great couple! We all had a great time talking with them and were really glad they chose to come be a part of the group for a bit.
The meeting ended around 12:30 PM I believe so we all gathered around Tim's phone to listen to the audio of the presser. As you know there was no decision made in regards to the SAC/SEA saga except that there would be more time needed to process everything. Everyone enjoyed the banter between Stern and Chris Daniels, as he knows how to get under the commissioner's skin, thus eliciting snarky comments in return. Chris also stopped and chatted with everyone afterwards, which was great.
We decided to hang out for awhile and saw several of the owners leaving including Clay Bennett and Glen Taylor. Mickey Arison shook several peoples hands as he went by, which was really cool! You can't help but think owners have to love the fact that fans are that dedicated to their teams. I mean who wouldn't want customers like that?
Matt served as our host that night and we enjoyed a great meal at Carmine's, where we met a family from Seattle on vacation (triplets!), and also attempted to call Grant's show only to find out the A's were playing.
After dinner we jumped on the subway and visited Union Square before finishing up the night at Finnerty's, which is a favorite Bay Area/NorCal themed sports bar.
All in all a day to remember!
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