PITTSBURGH - One kid was here to soak it all in. Another stayed at the beach, doing a bellyflop to the floor when he heard. This was the general reaction Saturday by two teenagers who could represent important pieces of the Flyers' future.
For now, however, Anthony Stolarz and Shayne Gostisbehere are just a couple of happy American kids, even if their teen years have been anything but normal.
"I just wanted to hear my name, and the sooner the better," said Stolarz, better known to his tweeting friends back home in New Jersey as @StolieTheGoalie. And for good reason.
"We got a big goalie," Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren said of Stolarz, "that we really like."
At every bit of 6-foot-5 and 210 pounds, Stolarz - who says he lives among backyard bears in Jackson, New Jersey though he played hockey this year in Corpus Christi, Texas - represented the start of an expedited second day of the NHL Draft for the Flyers.
The league honchos peeled through the second through the seventh rounds in 2 hours, 45 minutes ... thanks largely to no significant trade interruptions.
Of course, there's always plenty of GM chatter to go along with no real action.
"A lot of people are waiting to see what happens on July 1 to see if there's some big fish that move, and there will be movement once those big fish land somewhere," said Holmgren, referring to the upcoming first day of the free agency period. He's still seeking a top-flight defenseman and, like a bunch of his management colleagues, spent much time this weekend greasing the skids to make a possible move come July 1 when free agents like Zach Parise and Ryan Suter or even Justin Schultz will become available.
Before then, Holmgren will keep his eye on anticipated trading targets like Rick Nash, Bobby Ryan and Keith Yandle. And he'll be happy with his Draft Weekend work.
"We're happy with our draft," Holmgren said. "We stocked our cupboard a little bit. We got a big goalie we really like that's going to college."
Stolie The Goalie will be a crease specimen at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, and he's got the personality to match his size. Born in Edison, raised a short Jeep ride from Six Flags' Great Adventure and Wild Safari amusement park ... he says he has black bears roaming his backyard at times, but it was the hockey bug that really bit him.
He had idolized Martin Brodeur and was a lifelong Devils fan ... or at least he thought he was.
"Not anymore," Stolarz said.
He played in the Devils' Youth Development program two years ago, played in an elite youth tournament at the Flyers' Skate Zone and then was cut twice in trying the Eastern Junior Hockey League.
Undeterred, Stolarz went to a hockey camp in Albany, New York and caught the eye of a scout from the lower-level North American Hockey League that offered him a tryout with the Corpus Christi IceRays. Soon, the kid was happily leaving Jackson Memorial High and to spend senior year at a school in South Texas while living with a "billet family" of nice strangers.
"I always wanted to move away from home and play junior hockey," Stolarz said. "I never thought it would take me to South Texas, but it was a treat living down there right at the bench. A lot of good things happened."
All along the way, his progress was followed by the Flyers' front office goalie guru Neil Little, who apparently noticed that hockey on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico seemed to agree with Stolarz. But that's quite a leap to being a second-round pick by the Flyers in the space of one year.
"I was thinking it was going to be the third or fourth round," Stolarz said. "To be drafted in the second round is a true honor. I'm looking to make the organization proud and work my hardest and hopefully work my way up through the ranks."
Also aiming to do that is Gostisbehere, who went 78th overall in the third round though his formative hockey years were also spent at an unlikely place -- the South Florida shore.
"I'm in Fort Lauderdale right now," Gostisbehere said by phone after his surprising selection. "My family didn't feel like making the trip. We decided to stay home in Florida."
Well, Fort Lauderdale or Pittsburgh? Where would you rather spend your hockey draft?
But maybe the folks didn't foresee a draft selection quite this high.
"I was surprised when I saw my name; I literally jumped off the couch," Gostisbehere said. "It's a team that has so much history and so much going for it. A great team, and I couldn't be more proud."
While just a freshman at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., Gotisbehere was an impressive offensive defenseman and power play quarterback who helped lead little Union to a Cinderella type ride to the Frozen Four. Their season only ended in an NCAA championship loss to powerful Boston College.
"Couldn't have asked for a better season," he said. But it just got a lot better.