Many, but not all, visiting NHL teams stay at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel or the Pan Pacific Hotel, which are across the street from one and other in Vancouver. I work in an office tower next door to those hotels.

The hotel security staff do not allow autograph seekers to linger in the lobby and they seem have a mutually agreed magical distance back from the front doors where the many autograph seekers are allowed to wait. If you wanted to wait in the lobby, I think you'd need to be registered at that hotel.

The accepted culture seems to be that autograph seekers stay back behind the magical line until a player or players indicates a willingness to sign autographs.

Vancouver, with it's many ongoing movie and TV shoots, has a practice of allowing celebrities of all sorts have their space. I've noticed many NHL, and in the past NBA, players freely roam the streets.

Actually while having lunch today I noticed Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses have lunch at the lobby restaurant of one of those two hotels today, without visible security and without interruption.

mpc1