Committed Quebecers collude to cook corporate cook off

Oh dear, another year, another tale of NHL All Star drama. I know! People say the All Star game is boring, and obviously it is, because it is an All Star game and I am not going to sit here and argue first principles with you, but suffice it to say that though the actual game may be unwatchable, the NHL is developing a decent knack for making the runnup at least notable. A couple years ago it was Rory Fitzpatrick buoyed by fans having fun with the NHL's vote now, vote often voting system (still waiting for that recount). The hockeystocracy was aghast of course, that is the twenty or so people left in the NHL who still attached any symbolic value to the honourific of "All Star." 

And wouldn't you know it, those gosh darned fans are at it again, messing with the institution we(?) all hold dear. And this time most of them don't even speak English. It's Montreal Canadiens fans stuffing the ballots now, trying to pull off a ballsy All Star starting line sweep, six for six, all Montreal. Zut Alor! It's like, don't fans even care about hockey? Don't they take this stuff seriously? Do they think online balloting is some sort of joke? 

Power to the people, sez I. Haven't you ever popped in an NHL game and squared your colours off against say, an All Star squad, or even Team Canada? (Personally, I haven't but it has more to do with existential issues than anything else. Mats! You can't be in two places at once! etc etc) Haven't you ever shot the breeze, arguing whether your team could actually take on a team of All-Stars? People talk like that, right? Well anyway, Montreal fans have a chance to find that out now, and people want to take that away from them? Every time something interesting threatens to happen in this league, somebody has to suck the air out of the room and kick a few puppies for good measure. It's Montreal's 100th anniversary. The All Star game is unthinkably boring. Why don't you lighten up. So what Tim Thomas starts the second period and not the first. So what Kovalev is a bum. You don't want to see Montreal fans - Montreal fans in Montreal cheering for six Montreal players because it maybe ruins some sort of tradition? Hey, you know where to cast your vote. Write your own voting program and put it to work. This is democracy, deal with it.

Ok! That's another strawman torn to pieces. Carry on. 

It's Mess, I Confess

What do you even say after a night like tonight? You have Toronto, a team that has in the past couple of weeks joined any conversation on the topic of NHL's worst team, playing in San Jose, San Jose a good, well built hockey team if there ever was one but a team that struggles at home for whatever reasons. The Leafs who had lost their last four, took a two nothing lead into the third period and for those first two periods they looked fine, like a team that knew what it was doing, a team with confidence and muscle and everything else you're supposed to have to win in this league.

But but but, any savvy hockey fan who has followed the Leafs season to this point could have figured out what was coming.

Third period meltdown.

Oh yes, in what I think has become the Leafs trademark move this season, they did just enough in the third period to lose a game they had spent forty minutes winning. Quel surprise and etc.

But these loses are all for a higher purpose now. Change is coming, and I know I said that earlier this season and than nothing happened but you have to think that things have progressed to the point where not even Richard (Pettie) Peddie can sit back and tell us this is not the time for hasty decisions. Richard Peddie's job is safe, I think, I mean I don't think I've ever heard any of his bosses complain about him and the man does wonders for their investment returns so the blame is going to fall to John Ferguson Junior. I would be surprised now, following these three consecutive California loses if something did not go down. How can it not?

Whatever happens though, I can't even trust whether it will be a step in a positive direction, or just JFJ redux. I mean we are trusting Peddie, the same man who hired Fergie to replace him. What's giving me hope are Peddie's comments earlier this season when he told us that hiring a rookie GM like Fergs had been a mistake (oh you don't say) and the very, very positive example set by the Raptors' recent reconstruction led by GM/messiah Brian Colangelo, which leads us to believe that MLSE is not as completely useless as they seems. If they could get it right with the basketball side, and remember how that half of the operation used to make the Leafs divine in comparison, why can't they repeat it with the hockey half?

Of course, in order to fix this mess you'd need to bring someone in and then give him complete control of the hockey business, like Colangelo secured for himself with the Raps, because nobody worth hiring would put up with a board of governors who fancy themself hockey experts. So right there you have a problem because is this a hockey organization that is willing to take it's chefs out of the kitchen? Yeah I don't know. I want to be optimistic, but this is MLSE we are talking about and if there is anyone capable of screwing this up, it's going to be the clowns running this franchise.

Jason

Endnote - Tomas Kaberle is the only Leaf on the Eastern All Star team, which makes Mats Sundin an obvious snub, but he says he'd rather take the rest anyway so I guess problem averted? Or maybe it's just Mats being Mats, not wanting to cause a fuss. We could probably debate whether Toronto even deserves a player on the All Star team, but then, getting worked up about All Star games is just silly. Do people still watch them? I don't know.

All-Star Notebook

Thoughts from the NHL's All-Star Game:

- The new jerseys (the only reason we bothered to tune in, actually) are very, slick. Odd to look at after a lifetime of baggy, unflattering ponchos, but that will gladly fade with time. Sartorially speaking, the NHL got it right. Hockey players are some of the fittest athletes you are going to find, and it's about time they started showing it off.

There were a lot of dire predictions in the run-up to the unveiling, talks of 30 teams in 30 cookie cutter matching designs; of no more horizontal lines; of significant logo changes to fit the new parameters (notably, our Maple Leafs). That's all bollocks. Though some teams will be doing the logo shuffle (like the Columbus Blue Jackets, who will drop their expansion duds for their super fine, super patriotic third jersey, which is long over due) it won't be because the new jersey necessitates it.

- While we're at it, there are some people who might not benefit from the jersey shrink. That would be the league's smaller players, like Chicago's Martin Havlat, who looked particularly svelte at Wednesday's proceedings. And by svelte, we mean anorexic.

- Also, fat people.

- Tomas Kaberle was the Maple Leafs' lone representative in Dallas (though Alex Steen made the Young Stars game in light of his recent renaissance), an added after thought there to make sure somebody in Toronto was watching. Kaberle was easily their safest bet, no other Leaf, besides Darcy Tucker and Kyle Wellwood, who are both on indefinite injury leave, have really impressed much. Mats Sundin has been superhuman at times, but is scoreless in his last eight, and isn't doing anything particularly spectacular. Kaberle was a safe choice, if not an exciting one.
- Yannic Perreault was one of the most puzzling All-Star selections we can remember. A heart warming story - he didn't start the season with a contract you see - but is having a shiny faceoff winning percentage really all it takes to make it?

- Rory Fitzpatrick wasn't an All-Star. While we sent a few votes his way, it's probably for the best that he took the four days off: As vacuous as the All Star game is, all the players who make it there do it through their own hard work. Making it on a gimmick would have put Rory in awkward spot in that dressing room.

- For all the hype, Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin didn't do much of anything together. That's ok though, they'll have the next twenty consecutive All Star games to work on that.

- All Star games are really, really, really, really, ridiculously boring. Like, for serious.

Jason