The Stealth Dragon

A Washington Stealth Fan Blog

This project is maintained by tfitch

NLL All-Star Game’s Fan Fest not a Fun Fest

March 16, 2007
Author: tfitch

Between the prelims of the Skills Competition and the actual All Star game was the All Star Fan Fest. This was a horrible, awful, complete waste of time. It was the “All Star Fan Fest”, except someone forgot to tell the All Stars. The Fan Fest consisted of all the Portland Lumberjax who didn’t make the All Star game coming out and signing autographs, playing catch with kids or taking shots on Lumberjax back-up goalie Matt King. Where were the All Stars?

At the All Star game, give the fans All Stars, not scrubs from the local team or change the name. This event single handedly would have ruined our experience except for the awesome autographs we were barely able to get after the game. More to come on those.

Everything I read on the NLL site said this was the All Star Fan Fest. “Come to the All Star Fan Fest between 4 and 6.” ALL STAR Fan Fest. Everyone there was looking for the All Stars. I had my Colin Doyle jersey on and had kids asking me for my autograph because they thought I was the one All Star at the Fan Fest. Come on! My friends and I got to stand around for two hours and do nothing, hoping that maybe the real All Stars would come out part way through and hope we didn’t miss it.

I don’t know who screwed up here, Portland or the NLL, but this thing was the biggest let down I’ve ever experience in lacrosse. I traveled 600 miles (the shortest distance any road fan could have possibly traveled) to go to the All Star Fan Fest and meet the players as much as I came to watch the game. They needed to have clearly said there would be no All Stars at the Fan Fest. I could have spent my afternoon with friends I didn’t get to see on the trip. That was three hours I lost for the Lumberjax Fan Fest. Boooooooo.

Both the NLL and Lumberjax will be getting a direct message relaying these concerns about improper communication of proper even descriptions. If I hear anything from either group I’ll try to share it here for clarification.

Edmonton, don’t screw this up next year. You’re already slightly screwed over, by having to host the game on a Sunday after you have a regular season game on Saturday, but if you have a Fan Fest, don’t call it an All Star Fan Fest unless it is actually an All Star Fan Fest with access to the All Stars.

The Lumberjax Fan Fest was totally screwed up and I won’t forget it for a long long time.