Galchenyuk: It's fun meeting the teams

Wednesday, 05.30.2012 / 12:38 PM

By Alex Galchenyuk - Special to NHL.com / Alex Galchenyuk draft blog

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Alex Galchenyuk is a forward for the Sarnia Sting of the Ontario Hockey League. The 6-foot, 198-pound forward was born in Milwaukee but is of Russian decent -- his father, Alexander, spent five of his 22 professional seasons playing in the U.S. Alex was the first pick of the 2010 OHL draft, and last season had 31 goals and 52 assists in 68 games. He had 2 goals and an assist in five games for Team USA at the Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament, and returned to take part in the 2011 NHL Research, Development and Orientation Camp in August. Despite suffering a major knee injury that nearly ended his season before it really began, Galchenyuk has maintained a monthly blog for NHL.com that will chronicle his season leading up to the 2012 NHL Entry Draft.

It's Day 2 for me at the NHL Scouting Combine. Day 1 was tough. Well, not really tough. It was just exciting. A long day -- probably the longest day of my life so far. I had nine interviews. It was long, and it was longer because I had big breaks. I had a lot of time, and it got boring. I wish each one was right after the other, 1-2-3. But it was good.

No interesting questions to report. I was waiting for that the whole day yesterday, some weird, weird questions, because I've heard about them in the past. But so far this year, no. No weird questions.

I have seven interviews today, and they're spaced out a bit better today. I think I have one break, from 12 to 4 p.m., but that's not too bad.

Someone asked me if this is what I thought it would be like, and I'd say kind of yes and kind of no. I thought it would be like the Research and Development Camp -- same hotel, lot of media and GMs and players walking around. But obviously this is more NHL people here. I didn't know what to expect. I'd never been to Combine before. Now I know what's happening.

I have 22 interviews in all, and then I have my fitness testing Friday morning. I've heard about the bike tests, but I'm not nervous. I'm just really excited for it. You're going to do some stuff and a lot of people are going to watch you. I'm new to the experience, like I was new to the interviews. I'm just waiting and I want to see what's going to happen.

2012 NHL Draft

Galchenyuk: It's fun meeting the teams

By Alex Galchenyuk - Special to NHL.com / Alex Galchenyuk draft blog

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