Closer Than My Dreams
Tuesday, June 16, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
The talk started from the very top, Jeffrey Pollack himself. Just minutes after the Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the Detroit Red Wings the WSOP commissioner twittered that the Stanley Cup might make an appearance at the World Series of Poker. Pollack and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman are half-brothers; the NHL Awards Ceremony will be held on Thursday at the Palms, right across the street from the Rio. Pollack had also twittered earlier that “the WSOP Gold Bracelet is the Stanley Cup of Poker. There 4 the Stanley Cup is the WSOP Gold Bracelet of hockey”. Knowing the esteem the Commish holds each World Series bracelet in, I expected he’d think of the Cup in the same way. And he wouldn’t kid about something like THE STANLEY CUP COMING TO THE AMAZON ROOM.
I think I mentioned the other day that I’m from Pittsburgh, I’m a die-hard Penguin fan, and I’ve been on Cloud 9 since the Pens won the Cup. Heck, I was looking at pictures from the victory parade yesterday and had to wipe away a tear or two. So I’ve had my ears tuned to the possibility that the Cup might come to me, as I couldn’t go to the Cup. And indeed, it turns out Jeffrey Pollack wasn’t kidding. Tomorrow there’s going to be a charity poker tournament starring a number of NHL superstars at the ESPN Feature table. Alexander Ovechkin (must resist giving him a knee-on-knee hit), Roberto Luongo, Mike Richards, Jeremy Roenick and many others will be playing.
ESPN will be filming the event and they’re busy right now turning the stage into, well, a rink. They’re putting up boards around the table, they’ve got a net set up, it’s kinda neat:
As is the table–they’ve removed the green felt and replaced it with an “ice” surface, complete with bluelines, faceoff circles, a logo at center ice:
The boards might look a little strange but in a certain way it works. How many times have you seen someone jumping up and down after sucking out and wished that, say, Brooks Orpik would skate in from off-camera and slam the jackass into the boards? Goodness, how much might ESPN’s ratings jump if viewers knew that some player might get a two-minute penalty for boarding Phil Hellmuth?
There’s a small, circular table standing just off stage–I wonder what they’re going to put on that? The tournament begins tomorrow at 10AM, an early start for the World Series. I may just sleep at my desk tonight.
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Tags: 2009 world series of poker, 2009 wsop, gary bettman, jeffrey pollack, nhl, nhl awards show, nhl charity shootout, pittsburgh penguins, stanley cup at the world series of poker, world series of poker, WSOP
