Bears Blitz

Published by Bryan Dietzler on May 4, 2011
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears

For those of you who don’t know, the Chicago Bears have held an annual Fan Expo for several years, and it’s a nice event for any Bears fan to attend.  This year’s event appeared to be much smaller than events in the past years, both in terms of what the team offered as well as the number of fans in attendance.

This event was a two-day affair with the Bears holding a draft party on Friday night and then the regular fan expo on Saturday.  The draft party provided ticket holders with free food to go along with some draft-related discussion by WBBM and Bears game announcers Tom Thayer and Jeff Joniak.  Fans were present for the Bears’ second and third round picks (Stephen Paea and Chris Conte).  The reaction to Paea’s selection from the crowd present was positive, while there wasn’t such a positive reaction when Conte was selected.

There were plenty of exhibits to look at during the Friday night event (and on Saturday), and these exhibits were something new to the Expo.  The team brought in some busts of Bears Hall of Famers straight from the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, including those of Walter Payton, Dan Hampton and George Halas among others.  If you have never been to Canton, it was an interesting exhibit.

And for the first time that I can remember, the Bears had the Super Bowl XX Lombardi Trophy present.  There were also extended displays of some of the “artifacts” collected over the last few years, and these were all very popular.

The Saturday event, the Fan Expo, used to be one of the busiest and most attended events that I have ever been to.  The lines stretched into the front parking garage in the past, and it would seemingly take forever to get into the event.  Instead, it took just five minutes to get in once line started moving (and we were close to the end of the line).  Compared to last year’s event, there may have been just under half the amount of people.

The Bears Expo allows those in attendance to be part of seminars held throughout the day, and this year’s abbreviated event had some pretty interesting discussions.  The first discussion featured incoming Bears vice chairman George McCaskey and CEO/President Ted Phillips talking about the current state of the team.

Of course most of the discussion centered on the lockout and ticket prices, and the two handled the questions well.  In the middle of the seminar, we were joined by NFL commissioner Rodger Goodell through web chat, and he answered some questions about the lockout and about where things stood.  It was an interesting discussion even though no one had any “difficult” questions for Goodell.  It was certainly a welcome addition to the seminar.

Following that, the next seminar featured some former Bears players talking about what their lives were like with the Bears and what they have been doing since.  The players featured were Steve McMichael, Neal Anderson and Reggie Phillips (along with Tom Thayer, who was emcee of the event).  The discussion was interesting and gave fans some insight into life as a Chicago Bear.

Fans were treated to a visit by new first-round pick Gabe Carimi with the Expo’s next seminar.  Carimi talked about his career at Wisconsin, his excitement about playing with the Bears and a little bit about the draft process.  Both Thayer and Joniak then talked about the Bears’ draft to date (up until that point Chicago hadn’t made its last two picks in the draft as of yet) so the analysis was centered mostly on the first three picks that the Bears had in the draft.

The final seminar of the day was held by Richard Dent, 2011 Hall of Fame inductee.  The conversation that Dent held with the emcees and the crowd was interesting and perhaps one of the best seminars that has ever been held in any Bears Expo that I have been to.  Dent’s reflections back on his career and the players involved in the Bears’ march to their only Super Bowl victory was very insightful and informative.

Along with the seminars, there were other interesting things to do at this year’s Expo.  There were the popular field drills which allowed adults and children to try their football skills out on the field.  These drills included the regular drills for children and the popular field goal kicking drill, along with a new drill that allowed participants to catch passes in the end zone.  These stayed quite busy all day during the event.

The autograph sessions appeared to be slimmed down somewhat, although there were some great autographs to be had.  There weren’t any current players at the event due to the lockout, so the fans had a bevy of other guys to choose from, and the autograph lines were long.

There were the usual vendors there selling Bears and other Chicago sports memorabilia at the event, and the prices were very reasonable.

Although there were no current players at the event, the Expo was still one of the best events to go to during the NFL offseason and keeps fans in touch with their favorite football team.

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