And the Vegas Golden Knights are...

I just finished watching the expansion draft for the new Vegas Golden Knights. While the Rangers took the lead as my favorite team, I will forever be indebted to the Golden Knights, because they got me into hockey, which is now a major part of every single day of my life.

On November 22nd, the Golden Knights announced their logo and I wanted to see what it was after the thread talking about it on the Trading Card Database. I tuned into NHL Network and left it on...it took only moments for me to become hooked. Now the NHL is something that has already become part of me, part of my life.

Tonight we learned who would make up the team, and I took notes in Excel as it went along.

Several of the players came out on stage and I thought to take a screencap of Jason Garrison, the second to come on stage (Brayden McNabb was first but I didn't think to screencap). The new uniforms were introduced yesterday, they will be the only team wearing gray.

Now, the wait is on to find out what card will be my first from the Golden Knights. I took my first Bobcats card and, once I had a duplicate, put that first into a toploader (something I usually only use for mailing) and wrote in sharpie on the toploader that it was my first Bobcats card and the date and location I added it from.  I don't get as many cards as I did back then so I doubt I will get a duplicate of my first Golden Knights card, but you can bet I will make a blog post about it, something I was not even aware existed in 2004.

Despite being a sports fan for many years, this is only the second expansion draft I've experienced, after the NBA's Charlotte Bobcats in 2004. (I kept track of the players on paper for that one, a note I just found recently). I like the way the NHL did it, mandating one person from each team. It seems more fair that way. Hopefully the NBA will expand in the near future. I expect another NHL team in the next couple of years as well. I suspect if the Golden Knights are a success the NBA and other leagues will want to move into Vegas before too long. I hope it happens. I want more teams to collect!

I'm definitely going to make the effort to collect the team set of Golden Knights cards from the flagship Upper Deck set in 2017-18. Hopefully I'll be able to pull most of them. Realistically I know I can't because I don't buy enough cards anymore...but I can still hope!

I'm excited for the new season already...October 4th is the start date I believe. July, August and September are always tough months to get through with only NASCAR, but it won't stop me from posting.

Sorry for the lack of cards in this post, but the Golden Knights don't have any yet...