Rookie camp, Day 1

Nothing like a little Labor Day hockey when it's 90 degrees outside, right?

The camp started this morning, and the sessions are broken up by position. First forwards, then defensemen, then goalies. The goalies had some thunder stolen, because during their session, a large number of Kings veterans were skating on the Olympic rink. I didn't make a list, but off the top of my head I remember seeing Cammalleri, LaBarbera, Frolov, Blake, Stuart, Klemm, Armstrong, Visnovsky, Brown and Petiot.

The morning sessions for the rookies aren't practices, per se, just drills. The practice session is in the afternoon, with the full group.

I got interviews with Cammalleri, Johnson, LaBarbera and Erik Ersberg, and yes, they're on video. The real test will be if I can get them from the camera to the computer to the website. Let's all cross our fingers.

A couple other things:

-- The season-opening game in London will be televised by FSN Prime Ticket, with Bob Miller and Jim Fox. The second game, as previously announced, will be on Versus. The broadcasters will make the trip, but there won't be any TV or radio coverage of the exhibition games in Austria.

-- Nothing has been made official -- although I'm not sure why -- but I'm told that Oleg Tverdovsky won't be showing up at training camp. I'm still uncertain as to why this isn't official. Probably just some general goofiness of the part of the Russia league.

-- I got to meet Dave Lewis, who seems like a real good guy. He took note of the fans watching the drills and talked about how in Detroit, fans would be charged $10 per session to watch training camp. Somewhere, Tim Leiweke's ears just perked up...

-- The main topic of conversation for the day: were there always headlights on the Zamboni?

I'll get to work on the interviews. For those who would rather read transcripts, I'll try to do that as well.