Service Outage Made Draft Day Extra Memorable for Sixth-Round Picks

The Rogers outage in Canada that wiped out cell service and Internet connections for subscribers across the country made the draft day experience a little more chaotic than anticipated for defenseman Nolan Collins and forward Luke Devlin, both sixth-round picks of the Penguins.

"Not having service wasn't the best," Collins admitted with a laugh.
Collins was without it from the moment he woke up at 7 AM until 10 PM at night on Friday, July 8. He went through his usual morning routine, working out at the gym and then skating afterward. Some of his buddies that he trains with have Bell, so Collins was able to get some updates through them.
Once he finished up, Collins - who is from Whitby, Ontario - raced home as fast as he could, jumped in the shower and then joined his parents Justin and Lisa in front of the television.
"I got home at pretty much midway through the fifth round," Collins said. "At the start of the sixth round, like 10 minutes later, I saw my name pop up. I can't even describe it. It was the best day of my life, to see my name go up there. And to such an amazing organization like Pittsburgh that I rooted for growing up, it was a dream come."
Justin has been what his son calls a "diehard Pens fan" ever since Sidney Crosby entered the league in 2005. One of Nolan's earliest hockey memories involves the Penguins, as Justin took him to his first-ever NHL game during the inaugural season in PPG Paints Arena back in 2010-11 to watch the captain go head-to-head with Alex Ovechkin.
Watching Nolan get drafted was incredibly thrilling in itself, but to see him get taken 167th overall by the Penguins made for a very emotional moment in the Collins household, for Justin in particular.
"He was probably the most excited out of everyone. He was crying like a little baby," Nolan said with a smile. "It was awesome for me to see. Everybody in my family, we were all sitting on the couch… and then it was such a fast moment, but I've played it back in my head so many times. Everybody just jumped up and screamed simultaneously at the same time. It was so cool. I gave them all hugs and they were so happy for me. I couldn't have been picked by Pittsburgh if it wasn't for them and all the sacrifices they made for me."
After the news had settled in a bit, Nolan ended up heading to his public library so that he could use the WiFi there to answer text messages.
"But it wasn't until like an hour and a half after the draft, so my phone just was blowing up right as I connected to WiFi," he said. "So I answered some text messages there, a couple hours later, I had to leave because I couldn't stay there forever."
He logged on one final time when the family went out to dinner to celebrate, where Collins received FaceTime audio calls from director of player development Tom Kostopoulos and hockey operations advisor Trevor Daley; and also got his flight to Pittsburgh for prospect development camp organized.
"The next morning, I was getting ready to fly out. A little bit of trouble at the airport, but it feels great to be here now, and I'm super excited," Collins said.
While Collins was ultimately able to watch the draft on TV, Devlin's dad Matt - who is the play-by-by announcer for the NBA's Toronto Raptors - couldn't get it to stream on their TV, as pretty much everything in their home is set up through Rogers.
Matt did manage to get an online stream going, but it was delayed by a few picks. So Luke had the NHL.com draft tracker going on his phone. He made himself a bowl of pasta, looked down…
"And my name just popped up right next to the Penguins logo. After that, I pretty much blacked out," said Luke, who was taken 182nd overall. "My whole family erupted. It was a really great moment."
Especially because like Collins, Luke has also been a Penguins fan for a long time. He was born in Tennessee while Matt served as the lead play-by-play voice for the Memphis Grizzlies before they moved to Charlotte as he moved into that same role with the Bobcats. After Matt took the job in Toronto with the Raptors, Luke was exposed to hockey for the first time in his life.
"Once I got to school, everyone was talking about hockey, and at the time everyone's talking about Sidney Crosby. They still are," he said with a laugh. "So once that happened, I kind of just became obsessed with the Penguins and Sidney Crosby."
Luke watched all of his games, and for a while, he got a new Sidney Crosby T-shirt/jersey for Christmas every year. For one of his birthdays, Matt gifted Luke a stick with Crosby's face on it that he had gotten from Canadian Tire Centre. That makes it all the more surreal that Luke is now sitting just a few stalls down from Crosby's stall in the Penguins locker room at development camp.
Hopefully, these guys will get a chance to play with him down the road. In the meantime, they're focused on making good first impressions and learning as much as they can this week.
"Obviously one of the younger guys here," Devlin said. "I just want to do my best and show why they believed in me in the first place. Just do my best and work my hardest on the ice."