Celebrating the game's best players is not as simple as it sounds, argues the Contrarian.
In theory it should be easy. The reality is that the little details get in the way.
Let us start with, who is an all-star? An innocent enough question but it is loaded.
We immediately think of the flashy scorers, free-wheeling stick handlers, or great goalies but we do not give similar thoughts to the shot blocking defensemen or penalty killing forwards. Should they even be considered?
Well that question is supposed to be dodged with fan voting and yet another head of the hydra grows when you get Zemgus Girgensons being voted in as an all-star selection by the fans. Drew Weber of The Hockey Writers brings this up in his article "Saving the NHL All Star Game". He contends that based on stats Girgensons does not belong. Yet, it is irrelevant because Girgensons had enough people (his countrymen) be so interested in him that he earned a spot. Are you going to tell a fan, a whole country, that they can't vote for who they want? This isn't an isolated case either – do you remember Vote for Rory? The NBA has similar voting issues.
This could end up leading to other people and countries supporting their 'players'. Is that a bad thing? All this interest in the players, subsequently the teams and the league. Who cares what the statistics say?
Ah, there is the catch. The fans who want to watch the game live or on television do care.
They want to see players deke-ing in and out of traffic. They want to see great saves and most importantly they want to see goals. Well, do they really want to see goals?
They certainly want to see high quality goals but they most certainly don't want to see four players of the opposing team come down all alone on a goalie and have him flail around like a fish out of water before scoring a simple tap in into an open net. That isn't fair to a goalie and could hurt their psyche as much as an actual physical injury. So we need some sort of defensive play but we can't have too much. There has been snickering for years about if anyone was actually going to throw a body check but the counter argument to that is, what-if a 'star' player got hurt in what is a meaningless game.
It could cost their NHL team a chance to make the playoffs or even win the Stanley Cup. So that is why players like Sidney Crosby pull out of events like this. The risk is too great. While it is nice to be recognized as an All-Star, the real thing every player wants is to win the Cup.
That leads to this Damien Cox article titled "NHL all-star game walking fine line: Cox". He puts forth the notion that players who are nursing minor injuries and opt out of the All-Star game should be penalized with missing their next two regular season games. The current penalty to miss one game was introduced to make sure that the paying customers were going to see the best players. It was to make the game more meaningful.
Weber's describes in his article about a multi-game event (a similar idea was written about MLB's All-Star game). Another writer in Weber's column proposed the baseball style idea of having the conference winner earn home ice advantage in the Finals. Is that even possible with the way the teams are selected? What does that solve and does it not cause more trouble than it fixes? More heads of the hydra sprouting.
Why does the All-Star game have to have meaning? To generate buzz, to then sell advertisement, to then sell tickets and broadcast rights.
Why can it not be just fun? Fun for the players, fun for the sponsors, fun for the fans.
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