Anyone watching the All Star Game (today 6PM EST)? I am obviously rooting for the West! Four Ducks and two Sharks should help to sink the East!
[quote]RoadWarrior wrote:
Anyone watching the All Star Game (today 6PM EST)? I am obviously rooting for the West! Four Ducks and two Sharks should help to sink the East![/quote]
I’ll be watching, and as a Bruins fan I’ll be rooting for the East. That said, I honestly just hope for good games with these things. Especially with the NHL, they NEED a showcase of the best talent in the world to turn into a good game. After that skills competition they need it, too, that was AWFUL (though the YoungStars game was pretty entertaining, and watching Kane is a treat).
The shootout thing was pretty pathetic. Most of the guys were afraid to try anything interesting and they couldn’t pull off moves that half the kids on any high level junior team could manage. They should give it one more year and maybe move it earlier so the ice is fresher, and then go back to the original thing if it doesn’t go.
I like the idea of what they were trying- if they could replicate even a fraction of the wtf value that some of these guys do for company promo stuff, then it would be a great thing for marketing the NHL.
[quote]etaco wrote:
The shootout thing was pretty pathetic. Most of the guys were afraid to try anything interesting and they couldn’t pull off moves that half the kids on any high level junior team could manage. They should give it one more year and maybe move it earlier so the ice is fresher, and then go back to the original thing if it doesn’t go.
I like the idea of what they were trying- if they could replicate even a fraction of the wtf value that some of these guys do for company promo stuff, then it would be a great thing for marketing the NHL. [/quote]
My thoughts exactly. The whole thing seemed poorly put together, the announcers weren’t sure of the rules at times, the speed competition was all f’d up, and it seemed even some of the players didn’t know that it was a ‘creative’ shootout at the end…hell, the hometown favorite, Kovalchuk, got booed when he took a simple wrist shot during the creative shootout. If I were running the show the first thing I’d do is show all the players this clip:
You get some creativity like that in the All Star showcase and I guarantee you fans will watch. And yeah, I realize Schremp is wallowing in the AHL right now and players in the NHL are more substance than flash (basically, the opposite of Schremp) but I’m sure if you give Ovechkin, Kovalchuk, Gaborik, etc, a few weeks of practice they’d get something pretty impressive for the fans.
To me, things like this are important to get fans watching again…the game is exciting and the amount of young talent is ridiculous. But you need that ‘flash’, the extra something to get people back to the game, and things like this certainly can’t hurt (unless, of course, it absolutely sucks, as it did last night).
All Right! West takes first blood!
Ridiculous…I understand they’re trying to get more ‘characters’ in the game–making it more personal for the fans–but miking up a goalie during the game is insane. DiPietro took it well, but that West goal was all on the announcers.
Watching this game makes me mad that the NHL has been so mismanaged as to dilute the talent level to a degree that just isn’t as exciting as the game should or would be. Imagine eliminating 5-10 teams that simply shouldn’t be around to begin with, then putting the best 12 players from those teams onto the remaining teams and you have a MUCH better quality product night in and night out. As of now you have 2-3 All Star quality players on your average team, and twice as many players who simply shouldn’t be in the NHL littered across all the teams. You eliminate the drek, center the game where it should be (Northeast, Midwest, Canada) and you have a much healthier and more watchable product.
Spoke to quick on that one. Just as I hit submit Staal scored and then 4 more before the end of the first…
At least second period went a little better. 5 to 3 is more of a game (sort of).
15 goals and no penalties…that ain’t right…