The Ice Sheet: Wither The All-Star Game? - FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.

Back on January 1, the eyes of the entire sports world seemed to be focused on an outdoor ice sheet in Buffalo for the inaugural NHL Winter Classic between the Buffalo Sabres and Pittsburgh Penguins. The game had everything an NHL fan, and perhaps just as importantly, the NHL brass wanted. We had wind, we had snow, we had the best player in hockey providing a dramatic finish. It was essentially perfect from start to finish.

Now, just 26 days later, the NHL is trying to persuade the world to pay attention to another Winter hockey carnival, only this time taking place in America's Deep South and without an appearance by Sidney Crosby. Yes, it's the NHL All-Star Game, but it's hard not to feel like the game has really lost some luster these days.

All weekend long, FanHouse's Kevin Schultz is going to be in Atlanta covering the game, but before we kicked off his coverage, we conducted a little roundtable discussion inside the wire about whether or not it was time to junk the NHL All-Star Game altogether. This conversation took place via e-mail earlier this week.


Earl Sleek: Is anyone going to take the position to not abolish the ASG? I regularly call it the "most meaningless game of the year" and hope that Ducks generally don't make the team. I guess that attitude could use some work, as now (even with terrible performances in the public voting) the Ducks are sending more representatives than any other team.

James Mirtle: I say keep it. It's for kids and use as a promotional event -- putting it in Atlanta will put hockey in the limelight there, however briefly.

I think I've watched the skills competition every year, and there have been some good moments. The hardest shot was always the topic of conversation the next day back home.

Eric McErlain: We don't necessarily have to abolish it -- for instance, plenty of folks seem to like the idea of playing the All-Star Game out of doors like the Winter Classic, and I've floated the idea more than once that we should go back to original format of having the defending Stanley Cup Champion play a team of All-Stars before the start of the season. From where I sit, it would be a good way to tell the world that hockey's back, something that's always a challenge come the end of October.

The way things are now, the All-Star Game just gets lost in the mix, even this year when they finally showed some common sense and dropped it on the Sunday between the Conference Championships and the Super Bowl. Like it or not, the format is tired. Even MLS has tweaked its own All-Star event, regularly pitting the league's All-Star team against a top flight team from Europe.

Greg Wyshynski: Before we get to the future of the All-Star Game, I think there's something to be said about the players who treat the honor of being selected for the game as someone that takes away their three-day weekend. If there's one thing that Rory Fitzpatrick nonsense actually showed last season, it's that fans do believe an appearance in the ASG means something -- even if it's a goof or an attempt to get a marginal player on the roster.

These players get a pass all too often as "the nicest guys in sports," when many of them continue to be unwilling to go the extra step to promote the league. If you skip the All-Star Game, you diss the fans and are blowing off what should be a mandatory public appearance for the League. It's that simple.

How-ev-ah (tm, SAS), All-Star Weekend has lost much of its luster, and it's mostly the NHL's fault. The shootout was the "slam dunk competition" of ASG weekend -- a must-see novelty. Instead, we see it a dozen times every week, so there's nothing special about it any more. Even the thrill of seeing players from different teams on the same lines has been negated by the fact that star power ain't what it used to be in the NHL, and to a lesser extent by the League's Olympic participation.

How do you fix it? First of all, drop it to 4-on-4. If you want a showcase of circus-like offense, there you go -- more goals than a casual American fan can handle. I'd also tent-pole the event to a holiday (Christmas?) or Super Bowl weekend. But I don't think abolishing it is the right move -- why deny Tomas Kaberle of the right to play for a winning team for once?

Jes Golbez: Hands up if you missed the All-Star Game when the NHL cancelled it during the Olympic Year?

Yeah, not many hands going up there, eh?

Let's face it, the All-Star Game means little and few take it seriously. With so much access to watching players on other teams (TV, internet, etc), it's not so rare to see Sidney Crosby or Alex Ovechkin or another player from across the continent. In the old days, it was much harder to see the stars of the game, so the All-Star game was a real treat. Now? As Greg mentioned, we've seen it all before.

I'm somewhat looking forward to the re-vamped skills competition, but not the game itself. I've watched maybe 3 All-Star Games from start to finish, and have probably skipped a half-dozen altogether. Just like exhibition games, I feel no reason to watch hockey that has no bearing on the standings.

Earl Sleek: I have made it a long-standing tradition to not care about the All-Star Game (though I'll turn it on), which I often refer to as the "most meaningless game of the year". I mean, I'd rather watch a pre-season game; at least then you get to see some team-building or a few prospects. The ASG, on the other hand, is an annual sham.

I mean, it would be one thing if bringing together the best talents in hockey yielded the best game of the year, but there's a critical factor that's missing: nobody cares who wins. Therefore it becomes a frivolous exercise--lots of hoopla and fanfare, but in the end it's a very skippable game, both by players and fans. Even the skills competition has become fairly lame, as there's not a lot of intrigue around any event (nobody's holding their breath to find out which player is fastest or anything).

The irony is that I used to enjoy the weekend (possibly because the Ducks weren't going to the postseason a lot of those early years). However, probably not since Kovalchuk scored six goals in the YoungStar game in L.A. have I ever thought to myself after an All-Star event "boy, am I glad I saw that."

Unless they are going to fix it so that the game is better player-attended and somewhat meaningful (even if it's just pride, like North America vs. World), I wouldn't mind one bit if it was cut out of the schedule. Still, I guess it offers a nice break for some of us bloggers, so maybe it's meaninglessness isn't the worst thing.