Skills Competition to be Appreciated

For as boring and relatively meaningless as the all-star game has become with the advent of mass media the tone of the weekend is still something special and the skills competition is very unique and intriguing. This is where hockey fans and really sports fans in general get to see some of the world’s greatest athletes show off said greatness. It is a showcase of skill and excitement seen in moments over the course of the season all lumped into one spectacular event. The excitement and drama of a breakaway to the precision of the target shooting contest that can leave one saying “how did he do that!?” There is the brute power of the hardest shot competition and the sheer grace of the fastest skate portion which allows men to fly, even if only technically a few inches from the surface. Position players tend to get the most attention but in these moments we also see that goaltending requires just as much athleticism and an entirely different arsenal of skills. It is fun, breath-taking, magnificent, and any other word you can use to describe what amazing things mere mortal men can accomplish. All of that on top of the fact that the weekend will be hosted by the city home to one of the greatest franchises in all of North American sport and the world for that matter. So as much as the all-star game has been diminished in time there is still much to gain from this experience, and I encourage everyone to sit back, relax, and take in every truly incredible moment as they unfold right before your eyes.

NHL All-Star Game Insignificant

Both NHL All-Star teams have been announced but you know what, who cares? The naming of the guys on the team is fun but it’s something that should be saved for the end of the season because it should be something to honor players for a full-season’s worth of work not half. They say the game is for the fans and it really should be but for the most parts fans could not care less! The game used to be fun, in the age before the internet, expansive cable/satellite TV, NHL Network, and NHL Center Ice packages the game meant something. It used to be a chance for those not in a particular sports market to see the league’s best perform on a big stage. If you lived more than 150 miles away from the Canadian border there were some players and even some teams you may see only once or twice a year when they played against your team if you saw them at all. That also held true for the different regions of the U.S. not seeing players/teams from other regions or even before the U.S. had a worthwhile national broadcast of the Stanley Cup Finals. Now things have changed a ton and anytime any fan would like to see a superstar perform from anywhere around the league/North America the outlets named above give fans that opportunity. The skills competition is enjoyable because it’s different and players do activities they would not normally do but is that enough to keep the weekend going? In closing, the game is not what it used to be, name an All-Star team at season’s end and do nothing more with it.