The NYIBC sent six people to the NHL Booster Club in Philadelphia on the weekend of the 10th of August.  From great pre-convention activities to the Halloween party on Friday night - to hanging out in jerseys on Saturday evening, the Convention is a great way to get excited for the upcoming Hockey season.  Next year, the convention will be held in Chicago.  Nearly 20 years ago, I attended my first convention in Chicago, and had the time of my life.  I hope you would consider coming.  It is a great way to meet people from all over the US and Canada, and share a love of the game we call hockey to each other.  Once you start going, you never want to stop.  Also - get your calendars ready, the 2009 convention is going to LAS VEGAS.

Here is an article from John D'Errico about the Friday night festivities:

Wow, Friday night was a blast.  Since the Flyers colors are black and orange, they decided to host a Halloween party and provided pails of candy on every table for “Trick or Treating”.  With the goody bags provided, we went table to table like little kids asking “trick or treat” and got gobs of candy.  The Halloween theme was carried further with hundreds attending, all wearing Halloween costumes either home made or purchased, with a contest for the best (a headless man), still don’t know who he or she was, most original (pregnant nun), and scariest (a real scary ghoul), Colin of course.   Great costumes were everywhere.  Just to mention a few, there were blind referees, ghosts, a real good Harry Potter look-a-like, female impersonators, a Frankenstein, a few Hawaiian luau groups,  a 20’s flapper and beau, clowns, monks, Raggedy Ann, prisoners, a wicked witch of the north, scuba divers, devils, a doctor, lots of Mickey Mouse club members, an Elvis, spider man, mailman, M&M’s, leprechauns’, angels, cats, a tin man, six silly members (us) wearing tombstones that had poignant sayings that everyone had to take pictures of, and even Paris Hilton in orange prison garb.  Dawn, (Carolina  Hurricanes) sitting with us, was embarrassed to go trick or treating even though she was dressed up like a puck bunny, with pucks stuck all over her body and a little rabbit tail. Embarrassed, duh,  Larrie had to take her by the hand to go trick or treating.   A big laugh was when the pregnant nun didn’t come up for her award because she was in the bathroom.  There were hilarious shouts she was in labor.

After a delicious buffet dinner, we played the “Quest Game”.   A lot like a scavenger hunt but everything was available either on your table or on your person.   The laughter never died down.   When the emcee asked for a sock with a hole in it, Dawn pulled off Claire’s sneaker and proceeded to cut a hole in her sock with a butter knife.  I thought she was going to take a toe too.  Before any accidents, the emcee proceeded to tell us every sock has a hole, the one you put your foot in to get in on.  We were rolling.  When they brought Lou from the Flyers Fan Club up and sat him in the middle of the floor, the emcee announced that a man wearing lipstick had to kiss him on the head.  Claire grabbed John and smeared lipstick all over his mouth and Dawn dragged him up to do the deed.  I was LMAO with that one.   There was the great shoe swap with Mary and George wearing each others shoes and running up to the Emcee to get credit.    Each quest was funnier than the next with the antics of Claire, Dawn, John, Mary and George and we were all exhausted at the end.  Hey Gary, where were you?  (Webmaster’s note: I was drinking or something along those lines…)

Dancing followed and of course after that we retired to the hospitality room for some needed libations and time to talk and laugh at the nights activities.