2009 All-Star Game

Some highlights and things I noticed when watching the 2 day event:

-First time in a looooooooong time: Penalty, OT, 2 hits, and Shootout in an All-Star Game.

-The singer of the US national anthem was wearing a pink shirt with a picture of Obama's family.

-Patrick Marleau, a last minute addition to the Western All Stars line-up, made the final six in the first ever elimination shootout challenge and was one of 4 players with 3 points in the game with a goal and 2 assists.  Sad that the fans didn't vote him in and the NHL had to add him in by default.

-Speaking of the elimination shootout, Shane Doan won it.  If Phoenix gets more consistant goaltending, pencil in the Coyotes for a playoff spot next year.

-In the shootout, Tim Thomas stopped Mark Streit's shot.  In his frustration, Streit decided to take his anger out on capitalism.  What do you expect when the top scorer of the last place New York Islanders is their defenseman?

-The Rookies destroyed the Sophomores in the Young Stars game.  It looked like the sophomores weren't even trying, except for Carey Price.

-Jean-Sebastian Giguere let in a couple of bad goals, which made me question why he was voted into the game over other Western Conference goaltenders like Kiprusoff and Nabokov.

-Evgeni Malkin and Dany Heatley going 4/4 in the accuracy challenge, I think they were the 5th and 6th players to ever do that in an All-Star game.  Maybe 6th and 7th.  Either way it is a hard feat to accomplish and we saw two players do it in one game.

-Shea Weber came out and shot a puck 103.4 mph to set the bar very high for the defending champ Zdeno Chara.  The mark Weber put up was .3 mph faster than the shot that won Big Z the title last year.  And what did Chara do?  Break the all-time record with a 105.4 mph shot.

-I don't know how Alexander Ovechkin won the breakaway challenge.  I know he is a fan favorite, but all he did was bounce a puck in between two sticks (while wearing some ridiculous attire), and slapped it past a poor junior hockey goaltender.  Martin St. Louis had, by far, the most impressive skill, balancing the puck on his stick while waving it left, right, up, and down, before finally shooting it in.

-For a town with as much hockey history as Montreal, the fans let go of history for a while and enjoyed the event.  Players from the Bruins, including Tim Thomas, got standing ovations and even guys like Vincent Lecavalier, St. Louis, and Sheldon Souray got loud applause.

-Great job by the fans to vote in Scott Niedermayer and great job by the NHL to get Milan Hejduk in the game.  They were the top 2 defensive skaters and they broke up rush after rush that the Eastern Conference had to keep themselves in a game where they were down by 3 goals halfway through the second period.

-This was one of the more exciting All-Star weekends I've seen, and I hope the ratings reflect it.  There could still be some tweaks (like adding checking) to the All-Star game.  I didn't like the breakaway challenge this year, fan voting and unlimited shots in a minute made it seem not very... intense.  I liked the two shot limit with a judge panel.  That forced the players to give it all they got, and it felt like it actually mattered.  But the elimination shootout was epic.  

-Players (especially the Western Conference) really didn't care about this game until it was tied up at the end and their competitive natures got the better of them (they are athletes after all).  Guys like Zdeno Chara and Sheldon Souray were probably only voted in because they are defensemen that can shoot the puck 100+ mph.  And of course, they weren't about to do that in the game because they don't want to be responsible for injuring a superstar player in a game that rivals the intensity of a backyard match between neighborhood kids.  In a tied third period, there were at least 20 different instances where a pass went to the blue line, and the defenseman had a clear shot at the goal, a play we see more often than not during a regular season game.  But since they couldn't shoot it, they just passed it down low, where 5 defending skaters for the other team were waiting.  Only Jay Bouwmeester skated it up and shot it, which resulted in a goal.  My point: motivate the players.  They say it's all for the fans and it is fun, but they really don't want to try too hard because their number one priority is escaping the weekend injury-free (which DiPietro failed to do last year).  Make this game like the MLB All Star game: winning conference gets home field (or ice in this case) advantage in the finals.  Maybe we'll even see some defense and checking with the stakes raised as well.