Luc's big day begins

The Hall of Fame ceremony doesn’t start for another nine-plus hours, but Luc Robitaille’s day is already underway. At the moment, he’s on his way over to the Hall for a ceremony rehearsal, followed by a media conference, during which I believe he will be presented with his ring. After that, Luc gets about four hours of rest, although with all the people in town, I sort of doubt there will be much rest involved. Starting at 4 p.m. in the East, it’s on. Luc, the other inductees and their families will go through a series of photo shoots here at the hotel, then head over to the ceremony. There’s a “limousine motorcade,” which is pretty funny considering it’s about a three-minute drive, I think.

Then, of course, you can see the ceremony live on the NHL Network. I’ll be around all day, hopefully to collect some good stories to share and take some pictures and maybe even some quick video.

Last night, there was a dinner/party for Robitaille and Brett Hull at Wayne Gretzky’s restaurant nearby. Very cool to see the Stanley Cup come in, and then see Luc and his younger son look for Luc’s name on the Cup. The Robitaille and Hull families were there, along with folks such as Luc’s close friend and agent Pat Brisson, former players Guy Carbonneau and Kelly Chase, former NHL executive Neil Smith and several members of the Kings’ front office.

I’m heading over to the Hall right now. Here’s a story I wrote last night looking ahead to today, with some good anecdotes from Mark Hardy and Sean O’Donnell about Luc…

Countdown to Immortality