All-star team announcements due this week

by James Mirtle on Jan 5, 2009 1:13 PM CST Comment 20 comments

The 12 players voted by fans to the starting line-ups for the 2009 NHL All-Star Game soon will have company. The remainder of the 21-man roster of the Western Conference All-Star Team will be announced on Wednesday, January 7. The additional 15 Eastern Conference All-Stars will be announced on Thursday, January 8.

The YoungStars roster will be announced on Friday, January 9.

All announcements will be made exclusively on NHL.com at noon ET each day.

>> league release

Honestly, I get the sense just from readers here and elsewhere that NHL fans have never been more apathetic about the all-star game. People can say they don't care about the game all they want, but this year's fan balloting left a lot of diehards sour on the game — even moreso than they were already.

About the only thing worthwhile about the game at this point is the fact that it honours some of the game's top players. If you don't even have that any more, there's not much left.

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The ASG was always a joke

Now it’s a punchline, as well. Utter travesty.

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by Whale4ever on Jan 5, 2009 1:39 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

I don’t suspect my apathy towards the all-star game has changed in the last five years, honestly. But then again, I’m shrugging at the Winter Classic, too. Rudy accuses me of hating fun. He might be right.

http://www.battleofcali.com/

by Earl Sleek on Jan 5, 2009 1:55 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

Again?

Wait, the argument is that fans are apathetic because fans in Montreal and Pittsburgh weren’t apathetic?

Don’t we have this argument every year? Remember when Rory was the travesty? Fans were involved and the writers and talking heads complained that the system was being abused.

It’s an exhibition game and fans choose 6 of 21 roster spots, with most of those players likely to have been selected anyway. What is everyone getting so worked up about?

by PRC on Jan 5, 2009 2:06 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

The voting system this year wasn’t an accurate reflection of fan interest or involvement.

by James Mirtle on Jan 5, 2009 2:08 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

I wouldn’t go that far… Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Montreal have 3 of the “hottest” NHL markets right now. I don’t know how Anaheim stacks up league wide, but the other 3 are doing a lot of promotion in their markets right now and I think the vote reflects that.

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by saskhab on Jan 5, 2009 2:19 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

James’ comment was the nice way of saying “I want more Red Wings”.

http://www.battleofcali.com/

by Earl Sleek on Jan 5, 2009 2:21 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Montreal had one of the most dedicated cheating schemes going on as well. It is no secret that some people were using scripts to rig the vote, and that the overhwelming majority of the people using those scripts were Montreal fans.

by Resolute on Jan 5, 2009 2:21 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Eleven players broke the record for most votes in fan balloting. Should we interpret that as meaning fans were more plugged into this all-star vote campaign than ever before?

I don’t think so.

by James Mirtle on Jan 5, 2009 2:29 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

James, I think that the story about the ASG from now on will be about the voting and not about the game anymore. No one remembers what happened during AS weekend during the Rory campaign, but they all remember the campaign. Same will go this year with the Habs voting.

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by Blackcapricorn on Jan 5, 2009 2:52 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

I don’t even know how one voted for the game back in 2000 when Jagr set that mark that was broken this year. Online voting is by definition more accessible than previous methods, so I don’t see why anyone would compare the voting totals of this year and that year and draw any such conclusion.

Hockey blogging can't get any flatter.

by saskhab on Jan 5, 2009 3:29 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

What I’m saying is that, with the ability to text vote for your entire team, the whole process is skewed. Who knows if Ducks fans were more plugged in than Bruins ones? Maybe it was 12 people going to town for a month?

by James Mirtle on Jan 5, 2009 3:36 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Maybe it was 12 people going to town for a month?

You’re right. Cancel the event and send everyone home.

I think the voting process was well-spelled-out enough that if Boston (or better yet, a western team) couldn’t beat out Anaheim’s 12 voters, then their major complaint should probably be in their fans not wanting it enough. Certainly there was a mechanism available for achieving “justice”, whatever that means and whatever that’s worth.

As for the skew itself, blame the league and its quest for the highest publishable number. Just like its practice of talking about tickets-distributed instead of seats-filled, I’m sure the league was happier to talk about total votes instead of unique voters. I don’t think the league is bothered by the fact that it got something different than a “each fan gets one vote” result — and frankly, I’m surprised that anybody is bothered. It’s a lot of hoopla and rhetoric for the opening 45 seconds of an exhibition game.

http://www.battleofcali.com/

by Earl Sleek on Jan 5, 2009 4:03 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Heh, all I’m saying is the voting doesn’t tell us anything given the way it was conducted. No hoopla, no rhetoric.

by James Mirtle on Jan 5, 2009 5:01 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

It tells us which cities build the best voting robots, that’s about it, I’d guess.

http://www.battleofcali.com/

by Earl Sleek on Jan 5, 2009 5:03 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

at least you don't have those punch cards like baseball does

you know how long it takes to stuff a ballot box with thousands and thousands of punch cards? And all those chads!!

by tbell61 on Jan 5, 2009 5:10 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Remember when Rory was the travesty?

But Rory was also a specific and intentional abuse of the system to make a point, i.e. that ASG voting is a joke.

The NHL should decide the rosters in advance (around now), then give fans until midnight the day before the game to vote in their starters. No senseless debates about who “deserves” to go, no Vote for Rory, no all-Pens/Habs starter teams, just the NHL-deemed “worthy” (and therefore only one group to lambaste instead of two) and the fans still get a say.

And use it to decide home ice in the Stanley Cup Final. Oh, wait, baseball already did that it and it was stupid then, too.

by Doogie2K on Jan 6, 2009 10:22 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

All-Star weekend has always been “that weekend in winter without the NHL” to me.

The Winter Classic and “Hockey Day” are incredible promotional tools that the NHL is tapping into. The All-Star game should be forgotten as a relic of the past.

Hockey blogging can't get any flatter.

by saskhab on Jan 5, 2009 2:07 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

It’s bad in every sport … I’m not sure what the answer is to fix it, honestly. It does bring in a lot of corporate dollars for whatever reason, so they won’t scrap it.

by James Mirtle on Jan 5, 2009 2:17 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Steady decline

To me it’s just steadily declined in (personal) interest for many of the reasons often cited (all offense, evermore gimmicky selection process, less novelty in new “teammates” as a result of national tourneys and free agency constantly mixing players together). Even the constantly changing jersey color scheme deteriorates the singular event aura for me. This year’s vote silliness was just another blow.

The N.A. vs. World was a nice competitiveness change, but an ideal All-Star game for me is something like #66 lining up v. #99, Wales v. Campbell, an offensive but not ridiculous game like when Lemieux had a hand in all six goals of the 6-5 OT game in 1988. Even the eyesore orange-and-black was part of the charm, part of its unique identity.

It’s become a local promo tool for the host city, which is fine by me. But like James, I’ve no clue how to fix it or at least recreate some of the charm that several factors have irreversibly eroded.

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by Dominik on Jan 5, 2009 2:27 PM CST reply actions 0 recs