“I should’ve been there last night.”

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Let me just preface this by stating that I’m a tax accountant/grad student, I am not a reporter by trade.   I was given the opportunity to attend Danny Ainge’s pre-draft press conference at Healthpoint in Waltham this morning as a representative of Celticsblog.  It’s an experience I won’t soon forget. 

I arrived at Healthpoint about 25 minutes before the press conference just to get acclimated to my surroundings and check out the facility.  Beautiful place. I was in a room called the Hall of Fame room and it had the press table and Celtics background against one wall with the microphone on the table.  When I arrived, there were already at least a half dozen TV. cameras set up and a bunch of cameramen and media guys just hanging out.  I ended up grabbing a seat and pulled out my notebook and camera.  The room was also decked out in plenty of Celtics memorabilia behind glass cases.     After a bit, I went and introduced myself to Jeff Twiss from the Celtics and mentioned that I was from Celticsblog and he said he was happy to have us there which felt good.   It’s a pretty surreal feeling to physically be in a place that you’ve seen so many times on television.   As we got closer to "game time", recognizable faces starting arriving like Gary Tanguay and Marc Spears.  Steve Bulpett also arrived but after the press conference started.  You see these guys on television all the time and now they’re standing 5 feet away from you.   Pretty cool.

When Danny arrived, everyone stopped what they were doing and stood up and tried to grab a spot near the podium.  Danny is a lot taller in person than I pictured him but he came in very relaxed and seemed like a genuinely good guy.

It was a bit intimidating watching all the media guys asking questions.  I had a few ideas for questions but those were touched on early one.  Tanguay stole the one that I was considering asking.   As soon as Danny finishes one question, another media guy shouts out a question and so on.  You definitely have to be aggressive and I was a bit passive considering I was a "fan" there surrounded by "real" media types.   I didn’t end up asking a question but I thought a lot of interesting questions were raised.

After the press conference, I just lingered around the media room a bit to soak it up one last time.  As I was leaving, I walked up to Marc Spears and introduced myself.  I told him that I was a big fan of his work and he seemed like a genuinely nice guy.    Overall, this was a great experience and I’m glad that Jeff gave me the opportunity to attend on behalf of Celticsblog.

(More notes and comments after the jump)

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