Entry Draft a Rite of Passage for NHL Prospects

This is un repechage like no other.

The drafts for other sports most often have been conducted in hotel ballrooms, sometimes with most of the principles present only by telephone, occasionally with minions handing in the selections.

At the NHL draft today in Le Colisee, most of the hockey world and all the fans lucky enough to procure one of the free tickets will be packed into the 15,399-seat arena.

Scores and scores of players hoping to be among the chosen 286 will sit in the arena’s lower bowl with their families, friends and agents, waiting to hear their names called. The NHL distributed 2,600 tickets to that group alone.

“We believe in the inalienable right of every player to attend their own draft,” said Susan Elliott, director of information for the NHL. “Many players have told us that attending their own draft was one of the most memorable days of their lives. Even some of the players who never made it to the NHL tell us that. The draft is a much bigger part of the hockey culture than it is in other sports.”

The top prospects will be there, of course, along with European delegations such as the Swedes, so visible with their blond heads. Hopeful schoolboys travel to the draft too, just on the off-chance. Some, as first-round prospect Chris Gratton knows from watching friends last year, will wait in vain.

There is the drama of the last-minute deals, played out before the eyes of the crowd and a national Canadian television audience as general managers, owners and scouts huddle at tables on the floor, fielding telephone calls.

Three years ago in Vancouver’s B.C. Place, 20,000 looked on. One of them was Paul Kariya, a Vancouver boy who will be among the first picks today.

“I worked at the draft as a runner between the tables,” said Kariya, one of the three players the Mighty Ducks are focusing on. “I took up Petr Nedved’s ticket. Now, two years later, I’m actually being drafted. I have to pinch myself.”

There is the drama of the No. 1 selection, even when it is considered a foregone conclusion, as it is with high-scoring Alexandre Daigle of the Victoriaville Tigres today. Still, there is tension about whether teams will make trades to move up into the top few choices for the players they want.

“There might be major fireworks in the league today,” said Pierre Gauthier, the assistant general manager of the Mighty Ducks, who helped make the No. 1 selection three times while he was the scouting director of the Quebec Nordiques.