The NHL All-Star game has come and gone, and I felt nothing.
Thanks to the news read-outs on the subway this morning, I know that Eric Staal was the game's Most Valuable Player for scoring goals on behalf of the Eastern Conference, but it's taken some research to find out that the East won the exhibition game 8-7.
Before the game, I knew that Alexander Ovechkin was suiting up for the East, and that Tomas Kaberle was the only representative of the Toronto Maple Leafs. I was aware that alot of players were too injured to play, but that was because I'd seen a cartoon in the Toronto Sun poking fun at the dim star power of the event. Beyond that, I couldn't tell you a whole lot else about the game.
At least, not without surfing over to the pages dedicated to the NHL on SportsIllustrated.com or Yahoo! Sports. And I do mean go directly to the NHL pages, because it sure wasn't front page news.
And yet, Yahoo's Ross McKeon thinks that the game was good, great even. "This was the NHL All-Star game, and the fans got exactly what they wanted – lots of scoring, including a final-minute game-winner."
I couldn't disagree more.
Although scoring is great, and I am honestly glad that the new NHL rules have opened the game up, I disagree with the idea that that's what fans want. I think that hitting, penalties, and yes, even fights, are as much a part of hockey as scoring. Imagine watching a basketball game with only slam dunks. Sure it'd be exciting and good for highlight packages, but real fans can also appreciate a good jump shot or a vicious block. There is, after all, a reason why touch-football isn't a big spectator sport.
An even bigger worry is the lack of press that the NHL's All-Star game has garnered. I appreciate that it was in Atlanta, which is hardly a hot-bed of hockey. And I know that it was on Versus, a channel that most people in the United States don't get. But I live in Toronto, which definitely is a hockey city, and most people would have access to the game on TV.
But the game didn't make any waves.
I know we hear this, and we say this all the time. But Gary Bettman must be held accountable. He is the commissioner who established a team in Atlanta, he is the one who moved NHL games on to Versus, and he is the one who employed a marketing strategy that had one of the bigger hockey events totally flop.
