Chicago Blackhawks: 2016 Convention Highlights

The Chicago Blackhawks Ninth Annual Convention wrapped up today and it was a bang for me. This was my second year in attendance. I had another great experience and I would highly recommend it to any serious Blackhawks fans to attend the convention. While the buzz and people were lower than last season’s convention, my experience was much more enjoyable this year. I spent less time in lines and was able to attend way more photograph and autograph opportunities and still attend some great panels.

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The focus of this convention was Record Breaking, reliving the 2009-10 Championship, and the Defense. I had the chance to attend the Record Breakers panel, the panel featured Patrick Kane and Ed Olczyk with Pat Foley moderating. Eddie O and Foley focused on Kane breaking the American scoring record, the Blackhawks record, winning the Art Ross, Hart Trophy, and the Ted Lindsay award last season. Kane during this panel also gave some great insight and stories about his running mate Artemi Panarin. Kane said that Panarin is hilarious and gave a priceless story, When Kane extended his point streak by using a hand pass to Panarin for the empty net goal. Panarin came to their celebration huddle saying ” Blank Bobby Hull, Blank Him”. In the last two conventions, the Kane panels have been hilarious.

The next panel I was able to attend was reliving the 2009-10 Championship season. With Brian Campbell being back with the Blackhawks, the feeling of 2009-10 was back in Chicago. The panel featured Adam Burish, Ben Eager, Colin Fraser, Brent Sopel, and Daniel Carcillo. Carcillo provided the Flyers perspective. Carcillo was great, taking shots at the panel for making him relive the fact that he was on the losing team in 2009-10. Burish gave us some great prank stories and Sopel informed us that Kris Versteeg likes to cry in his car after Q yelled at him. Carcillo and Fraser would confirm Sopel’s comments on Versteeg.

The best panel of the convention in my opinion is the “What’s your Goal” panel. This panel made everyone in the room cry, after showing each commercial from last season, they brought out a the stars of the commercial. Corey Crawford, Duncan Keith, and Coach Quenneville were Blackhawks on this panel. If anyone attends next year, I recommend this panel as a must see.

The Kids only panel was another panel I attended.

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Marian Hossa, Andrew Desjardins, Trevor van Riemsdyk, Jamal Mayers, Burish, and Tommy Hawk were the panelists. The kids had some great questions and Tommy Hawk was up to his normal comical antics.

The last panel I was able to attend was the Blue Liners. This panel featured Keith, TVR, Campbell, and Niklas Hjalmarsson. We learned in this panel that defensemen are the smartest, fastest, and best players on the ice per Keith and the rest of the panel. The highlight of the panel was when Keith called Brent Seabrook on his cell phone. Keith then instructed the whole panel to yell hey Biscuit. Seabrook would throw out an F-Bomb asking why was there a lot of laughing. It was priceless.

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Personally, I was able to get eight pictures with current, former, and future Blackhawks. I got pictures with Sopel, Burish, Kyle Baun, Tanner Kero, Viktor Svedberg, Pat Foley, Michel Kempny. With some luck and good timing, I got autographs from Fraser, Sopel, Burish, Jim Cornelison, Frank Pelico, Burish, and Tyler Motte.

My convention wrapped up with Frank Pelico letting me wear his Stanley Cup Championship rings while getting a picture with him and my girlfriend.

Another year and another great convention, We now enter the summer break.

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