All-Star Game a bust blast

I went over to Yoder's place last night to watch the All-Star game. Going into it, I was prepared for disappointment. After the minimal 'street cred' the NHL gets, I didn't think there would be much fanfare.

I was wrong, and I'm happy about that. The All-Star game was actually quite entertaining. The players donned their new style uniforms for the first time, and I thought they looked pretty cool. A little less traditional, a little more 21st century. I didn't have a problem with the old unis, but I'm cool with the change.

The game was great. The whole thing went down as you'd expect. The players showed off their passing and shooting skills with minimal contact, but the game was fast paced and there was always a plethora of on-ice activity. My favorite part of the contest was when the hosts in the booth had a conversation with Marty Turco while he was playing the game. Marty seems like a charismatic guy, and he was chatting away as he stacked the pads and played the puck. Itwas something that I've never seen before in any sporting event.

During the game, footage was aired of the other events going on during the week and I was impressed. Dallas truly rolled out the red carpet for the NHL stars and inflated the game to more of a spectacle than I thought was coming. Despite the national media not really embracing the week's events, it seemed like the locals put on quite a show.

Nash was a stud for the whole game. His first goal was taken away and given to another player (ain't that the jackets' luck) but his next two goals and two assists were his. It was a great way to represent our team. We need Nash to play like that in Nationwide too.

In all, the All-Star game was a great display of the game of hockey. Yeah, it wasn't very physical, but the players and fans alike were smiling, and the spirit of the game transcended though the tv... even if it was on Versus.

Versus hosts the Young Stars and Super Skills Competition

The All-Star break is upon us, and tonight hockey fans with 70 tv channels and up were privileged to watch the Young Stars game and the Super Skills Competition.

The Young Stars game consisted of 3 ten minute periods of entirely 4 on 4 play. The players were selected unevenly from the NHL, and not every team was represented. In fact, a significant number of them weren't. So be it- we can keep our Brules and Fritches to ourselves. The game was high scoring, netting near 20 goals. Play was quite friendly, only one penalty and extensive cherry picking. Like so often in professional all-star games, the players didn't seem to be competing so much as they were just having fun. I can appreciate that, but I tune in to the All-Star events to admire the skills and tenacity of players whom I don't get to see on a regular basis.

The skills competition is always entertaining, and is a unique experience. I always look forward to this event the most because it truly breaks down different aspects of the game that fans never get to see by themselves. The Skills competition consisted of a puck relay that including stick handling, a shootout, a three on none goalie competition, a fastest skater contest a slap shot speed contest, and a shooting accuracy contest.

Our own Rick Nash was the winner of the solo puck relay contest- he blew away Jay Bowmeester of the Panthers with his long strides and smooth skating. Nice job Rick- too bad you couldn't come through in the shootout as well. Nash also participated in the three on none goalie competition, though he was pretty ineffective. Nash was placed on the face-off circle to the goalie's right... too bad Nasher shoots lefty. Oops.

I have a couple quick rants about the event besides the misplacement of Nash. First, the Dodge Nitro timer for the speed competition didn't work, so the timing was done by hand, virtually eliminating the thousandth of a second accuracy that had been custom in the past. Second, I was disappointed that the event aired on Versus. Nothing against the channel -they do alright for being a bottom tier cable channel- but you're telling me that no broadcast station (even NBC, which has some level of NHL contract) would pick this thing up? Not even ESPN2? Fox sports? What the heck? The NHL needs to bring its product to the masses, not just those with digital cable. Out of curiosity, I wonder who aired it in Canada? (CBC Sports as it turns out.) I understand Versus is fairly low budget, so they can't afford the premier sportscasters, but they have to do better than these knuckleheads. A major network could have brought in someone a little classier for the week. The guys in the booth were obnoxious, and everything happening on ice was secondary to their random banter with co-hosts Mark Messier and Bill Clement. I'm fine with Messier and Clement, in fact I think Messier is a helluva guy, but you need to put real broadcasters in the booth with them who can keep the talk interesting and focused.

On a sidenote, Versus also debuted their 'rail cam' which is a camera on a sliding rig that moves along a (you guessed it) rail mounted on the side boards. It follows the play with decent speed, but hockey mandates a wider view for seeing the development of plays that are active from the goal line to the blue line simultaneously. I'll give them substantial effort points though. It's not often you see any network trying to enhance the way we watch the game.

Tomorrow is the actual All-Star game. Even though so much of the sporting public has a distaste for the NHL's lack of competition in the game, I still enjoy watching the league's (and arguably, world's) best come together. Sure, a new format of some kind might make it more interesting to a wider demographic, but hey, I'm gonna watch it anyway. Even if I have to tune into channel 70.

All-Star Break Time for the Jackets

The Jackets took down the mighty Wings with three swift blows from the stick. I regret not attending this game- I should have thought to get some tickets during the 24 hour sale. Whoops. Anyhow, I did manage to watch exactly the first half of the game, and I was actually pretty impressed. The team played solid all around. After watching the dismal effort put up against Nashville, and then last night's game, it was pretty clear the Hitch ran a rigorous practice between games. The team seemed more focused on fundamentals and less on making a big play. Checks were finished, passes were crisp, and plays came together where there hadn't been a connection before. Perhaps best of all, the Jackets only ceded 6 penalties. I'll take it. In all, it was a good way to go into the All-Star break.

This year's All-Star game will be held in Dallas, or 'Big-D' as they say in Texas, where even cliches are big. A quick rundown of the schedule:

Tuesday: Young Stars game and the 'Super Skills' competition, which is always fun to watch.
Wednesday: The actual All-Star game. Rick Nash will be representing the CBJ.

Monday also includes an interesting event, and one that I was not familiar with. Quoth the Dallas Stars All-Star game web site:

American Airlines "Salute to a Generation of Stars," presented by Idearc Media, official publishers of the Verizon Yellow Pages (AAC, 6-8 p.m.): The all-stars will hold showcase practices during which there will be a salute to several former NHL stars. NHL legends scheduled to appear include: 19-time All-Star Ray Bourque; Hockey Hall of Famer and three-time Norris Trophy winner Paul Coffey; top-scoring US-born skater Phil Housley; 1999 Stanley Cup winner with the Dallas Stars Brett Hull; Hockey Hall of Famer Mario Lemieux; Olympic Gold Medalist and 13-time All-Star Al MacInnis; six-time Stanley Cup winner and 15-time All-Star Mark Messier; Hockey Hall of Famer Larry Murphy; four-time All-Star Joe Nieuwendyk; five-time All-Star Adam Oates and eight-time All-Star Luc Robitaille.

I think that sounds mildly entertaining, though I doubt it'll be televised. I look forward to the day when Columbus gets to host the game. You'd think we'd be pretty high up on the list after being voted the #1 stadium experience. And I'm sure we're as big of a market as Minneapolis, and we're reasonably close to two other hockey cities and several metro areas. Someday. Right about the time the Jackets win the division.

Alright hockey fans: today I leave you with a classic hockey clip. I've recently developed an affinity to posting clips from YouTube. Hopefully you don't mind to much. This is the intro from the 1980 NHL All-Star game. I'm sure you'll recognize a few faces.

The Rory Fitzpatrick Conspiracy

If you're not an avid blogger or internet news reader, you may have missed the whole Rory Fitzpatrick story. Rory is a veteran defenseman for the Vancouver Canucks. Despite ten seasons with the NHL, he has only netted nine total goals and only one assist this season. While on paper he isn't much, he's a fan favorite in the league. I would make comparisons to Jody Shelley. A hard worker, but not one to produce results that affect the team's season.

A hockey fan from New York took this season's All-Star voting as an opportunity to recognize Rory by starting a grass-roots campaign to get him into the All-Star game. The campaign was strong and Rory received thousands of votes from all over the country from fans that admired his veteran status and grinding style of play. After all, being an All-Star is about more than what's on paper, right? Rory's vote totals reached the hundreds of thousands. Before long, making the All-Star team wasn't even a question. In fact, there was a good chance that he would start.

It wasn't long before Rory's magic was found out. A computer programmer from Vancouver had found a way to vote for Fitzpatrick automatically. He developed an add-on for Firefox that would automatically fill in the All-Star ballot, including the scrambled picture code, and vote over and over again. All Rory fans had to do was start up their browser to cast their vote thousands of times. This Slate article explains the entire situation, including how the Firefox mod worked.

Needless to say, the NHL figured it all out before long and insisted on rectifying the situation. Whatever the vote totals were, officials and hockey pundits alike didn't think Rory deserved the accolade. As the Slate article explains, officials didn't find a strategic way of finding where all of Rory's automated votes originated. Instead, they simply discredited 100,000 votes. Unbelievable.

While it's entirely true that many, if not most, of the Rory votes came through automated means, the NHL shouldn't prevent a fan voted player from receiving his votes. If they were so dead-set against fraud, they should have done a better job with site security, or simply restricted the number of votes per person to a finite number (Voting was unlimited). In the end, no one gets hurt, and a ten year veteran of the league gets a chance to represent his team, his city, and a slough of fans that care about more than numbers.

While writer can debate the legitimacy of the campaign, the NHL needs to realize that the Vote-for-Rory campaign is a blessing to the league. In many places, media articles brought attention to the upcoming All-Star game and drew in fans that normally would have tuned into American Idol or whatever drivel is on during the same time slot. Fans are fascinated by the Rory campaign, not turned-off by it. After all, it's one player on a roster of dozens.

According to this article from NHL.com, Rory obtained 480,000 votes. That's good enough for 4th best overall, and is surely a record for a write-in candidate. I support the Rory movement. Next year we'll get Shelley to the game!