Sounds like a great idea to me. No worries about forwards or defensemen either since there wasn’t anyone playing defense anyways.
I’d also like to see them add the goalies to the breakaway competition. They let them skate the rink in full pads. May as well see how they’d do as forwards.
I honestly thought the game was boring as hell. Somebody needs to tell Bettman that high scoring isn’t where the excitement comes from. I did like Ovie throwing his stick though. The skills competition was far more enjoyable and mainly for the same reason that the stick throwing was enjoyable. It was just a bunch of hockey players goofing around for the hell of it. I understand you don’t want them going at it full tilt and injuring each other in a game that doesn’t count, but if you’re going to do that you may as well just let them do whatever the hell they want and have fun at it.
But they do do whatever the hell they want. It’s pond hockey. And pond hockey is FUN. You can see NHLers and AHLers play pickup around here and it looks just like the allstar game. I bet the skaters (not the goalies) have the most fun out of anyone there.
And yeah, I bet the goalies on my beer league teams want to skate down to the other net and put the moves on!
I wonder what it was like to play against Gordie Howe in an allstar game?
I thought a fight between the Sedins would have been fucking cool.
The last All-Star game with Ovie skating around with the cowboy hat and Malkin feeding him gatorade – now THAT was classic. (Especially considering how much they used to hate each other) I liked seeing Subban wearing Skinner’s jersey. Not as good as Ovie and Malkin, but still pretty amusing.
Heh! I could play better defence. And my MCL is torn up. I was skating backwards against my 10yo daughter last week and doing better than Chara et al. Also 44 yo here.
What’s up with naming the All-Star teams? Lidstrom was +7 (+7!–with only 1 assist!) and Staal had 2 goals, so I guess they knew what they were doing; but Lidstrom and Staal? What was the genesis of that naming scheme overall and why did they specifically pick those two players?
ETA: Nevermind; I found this. I guess they’re just mixing things up.
The game was fun, I went to a very good tailgate. I forgot the goalies almost never freeze the puck which is nice because it means less stoppages. The organ player kept thinking the goalie would freeze the puck so he started music a few times only to quickly stop playing.
The general opinion from the goalies seems to be that the game is fun for the other players, and the atmosphere is fun for the goalies, but it kind of sucks to be a goalie in the ASG since you pretty much have no hope of playing well (Hiller and Price had the best Sv% at 0.882 and 0.812 respectively!), though all the goalies made a few really nice saves.
The “real” regular season picks up again tomorrow, with the Habs having more annoying scheduling; three sets of back-to-backs, two with travel within the next week. Should be fun!
Said it before. I’ll say it again. That was some damn good rivalry back in the day.
And here’s to Johan Franzen, who got as many goals last night as the entire Ottawa Senators team did. I’d feel better about the defense if he hadn’t had to get five goals to do it. If Scotty Bowman had seen that, he’d be spinning in his office chair.
