Announcing the First Ever TLN Draft Lottery Party

Paper bag not included, Draft Lottery odds may not be as advertised. Return of your personal passion not guaranteed.

It’s Tuesday morning. Do you know what that means? We’re four days away from knowing where in the draft the Leafs will pick! That’s fun and exciting, but nobody wants to be the jerk sitting alone in front of a TV screaming at Bill Daly as he reveals his LP-sized cards one by one. 

But what if we could do that as a group? Enter the Leafs Nation Draft Lottery Party, brought to you by, well, us and some of our friends! Here’s what you need to know.

Saturday is poised to be a big night for the Shanaplan. Finally, after months of cheering for one last sacrificial lamb of a season to go in the mathematically worst way possible, and weeks of nervous tension after finally clinching the 30th seed, the Leafs will have a good idea of who they’ll be picking come the end of June. Well, unless they pick 4th, which has a 47.94% chance of happening and would inevitably lead to eight weeks of torturous arguments pleading the case for about a dozen players outside of the big three.

In an attempt to get the hockey gods to line up in favour of Toronto, we’d like to gather together to channel any sort of positive energy in the direction of the lottery balls. OilersNation has been having these lottery parties for years now and have been able to build a modern day lottery dynasty as a result. Our collective energy only has to travel 600 metres, though, so we think we can overpower them.

As a bit of pre-lottery entertainment, we’ll also be watching The Passion Returns as a group. For those who have never heard of it, The Passion Returns was a team-created documentary about the 1992/93 team, who were the last group to pull the Leafs out of the ashes of a failed era and into one where winning felt possible. Without spoiling it for you, it’s filled with 90s Stereotypes, younger versions of your favourite vintage players and executives, and hilariously younger versions of a few Toronto reporters. It’s a cult classic in the Leafs community. Most importantly, we have the best looking and sounding copy of it that you’ll ever find. It’s going to be awesome and it’s going to be a great night where we’ll be able to embrace the positives that the organization has put forth lately.

Now that we’ve all agreed that this is the greatest idea of all time, we need a meeting place, don’t we? Don’t worry; we’ve already thought of that.

On Saturday night, our rally point will be The Tilted Kilt over at 38 The Esplanade. For those of you taking transit (a wise and recommended choice if you’ll be drinking), the Tilted Kilt is conveniently within a five-minute walk of Union TTC/GO/Via Station. Simply walk east on Front until you get to either Yonge or Scott Street, walk south, and you’ll be a quick venture from down the Esplanade away from us!

We’ll be kicking things off no later 6:00 PM, though I’ll probably there a little earlier running the draft lottery simulator on my laptop while shaking furiously. We’ll be going until at least a little while after the draft order is decided, though a good result could mean that this party goes well into the night.

You’ve now made arrangements and you’re already stoked. But what if I told you it gets better? Because it does! The fine people behind Babsocks will be around to make sure that our feet are ready for anything, and our friends at Lake of Bays are going to make sure that there’s plenty of Top Shelf Beer to go around. The latter has me particularly stoked; I hate pretty much any beer that isn’t a lager and Top Shelf is about as lager as it gets. 

With beer added to the equation, we can give this event so many names. “A few brews for Matthews”. “Lagers for Laine”, “Shelf Party for Puljujärvi”, ..lets not talk about picking 4th.

But most importantly, you’ll be there, taking advantage of a rare opportunity to get excited about the Blue and White. We invite you to bring a friend (or two, or twelve) and help us fill the place to the brim! We want that place rocking so loud that Auston Matthews can hear us in the studio on Wellington when the golden envelope comes out. We want it to be so loud that the chosen one feels compelled to join us in the celebration afterwards (outside, obviously, because he isn’t legal drinking age). We want it to be so loud that Drake shows up and records a sequel to Draft Day on the spot.

Okay, that stuff is probably less likely than picking first, but one can dream. We still want to make sure that you have a great time, though! Hopefully, we’ll see you on Saturday night!