Remember When The All Star Game Ruled?
Tweet Posted by Mother Pucker on November 13th, 2008Do you remember when the NHL all star game was actually a compilation of bonafide all stars? I bet many new fans don’t, and surely the latest joke that is the fan all star balloting isn’t helping things at all. At time of writing, there are some noticeable standouts that are getting way too many votes, and players that are being overshadowed by this voting imbalance.
What the heck are three Montreal Canadiens doing at the top of the Eastern Conference forwards list? Is it not glaringly obvious that things aren’t realistic when they already have double the votes of the player in fourth (Semin)? How about out West where Marty Turco has double the votes of Evgeni Nabokov? Thankfully people are using their heads on this one and the deserving Roberto Luongo has a solid lead. Regardless of the fair voting that is going on, I have to say that the NHL needs to consider the way it allows people to vote. I’m no rocket appliance when it comes to figuring out how someone may have hacked this voting system, but I will declare right now that something is up. Seriously NHL, fix it!
And now for a little fun. Who can name all of the players in the caricature above from the 1997 all star game? I’ve got 12 at first glance and will take a little more time to figure out the others. Post your guesses in the comments below!
Hull, Sakic, Roy, Vanbiesbrouck, Gretzkey, Chelios, Kariya, Yzerman, Cicerelli?, Bourque, Jager, Ozolinsh, Lindros, Leetch
Hahahahaha… Jagr’s hair.
Yeah Jagr’s hair rules in that picture.
And you think the guy beside Chelios looks like Kariya?
Not only are three Canadiens killing the competition in the forwards’ voting, they have the top 2 defensemen spots (with 5 times as many votes as #3) and the top goalie as well. Carey Price has almost 3 times as many votes as Henrik Lundqvist? Yeah, right. Something fishy is going on.
The caricature of Leetch kind of makes him look like Modano.
Seems like the All-Star game is nothing more than a popularity contest. If that’s what fans want to see, I’m ok with it. However, when you look back and say so and so was a 2-time All Star, you’re almost just saying he was a really popular guy. I liked it when it was North America vs the rest of the world.
Looks to me like the NHL is trying to have the Eastern starting all star line be all Montral Canadiens to go along with the Habs 100 year celebrations.
You are bang on here!I just finished voting and went to look at the results.What a waste of my time this was!
If Montreal fans wanted to why don’t they just go back to the old format of the previous years cup champs taking on an all star team consisting of the rest of the league’s players.Oh wait the Canadiens DIDN’T win the cup last year.
The NHL needs to fix this and fast.I smells a cheater!!!
I’ve done some looking into this, and apparently the league is going to investigate what is going on. Its glaringly obvious that something is up, and its about time that they dug into it.