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Sights around the All-Star Game Fan Fair and fantasy draft

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Taking a walk around downtown Raleigh yesterday, you can’t help but notice how much this city is going bonkers over the All-Star Game. Every light post has a banner, every hotel is recognizing the game in some fashion, and there’s hockey-themed everything all over town and in every bar and restaurant.

Some fans throw insults towards the Hurricanes for being a southern hockey team, but if one was to judge the city and the fans based on this weekend alone, you’d have a hard time thinking this place is anything but a hockey town. Raleigh loves the Hurricanes and with good reason too. They’ve got a fine corps of young players and a team that despite missing the playoffs in three of the last four seasons, the fans adore this team. Being rewarded with the All-Star Weekend is being willingly accepted by the city.

As for how things look around here... Here’s a few photos from around the Raleigh Convention Center which is hosting the NHL Fan Fair and hosted the NHL All-Star Fantasy Draft last night. If you’ve got a distinct fear of mascots, you might want to hide under a blanket. (You can click on any of the photos to see them in huge, grand glory)

The main thing to take note of inside the Fan Fair was the set up they had for the All-Star Fantasy Draft.

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While rolling through there, it was interesting to note the assigned seating they had for the players.

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Ovechkin sitting next to Fleury? Well all right then.

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Upon walking into the Raleigh Convention Center, I was immediately greeted by a cavalcade of furry, welcoming NHL friends. Here we’ve got Louie from the St. Louis Blues and Fin the Whale from Vancouver.

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The other amusing and potentially really wallet-punishing part of the Fan Fair comes from the folks selling memorabilia. You’ve got all the traditional stuff from pucks to cards to jerseys all autographed, but it’s the random stuff I’m more interested in and I very nearly made a rash purchase.

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Tell me you’ve never seen Wayne Gretzky look more dapper than with a bright red umbrella on his head.

We’ll have more sights from around RBC Center today as the true tailgating begins in earnest. We’ve always been told that no one does tailgating right the way the Hurricanes fans do. We’ll see how things shake out today and tomorrow.