LMIRT Installed as High Ruler of all Hockey

So it’s the NHL All-Star break and talking heads will be scrambling all over one another during the next few days to talk about how archaic and needless the All-Star Game is. And that may be true-- for anyone over the age of, say 16. The All-Star Game isn’t meant for grumpy 40-year olds, it’s meant for pie-eyed youngsters just learning all the stars, and it’s meant for outsiders to tune in to see what all the fuss is about. So let’s do away with any notion that the game is out of touch and irrelevant. It’s vitally important (though admittedly less-so now with 24-hour highlight channels that lets us see every star’s every move), and still a lot of fun to watch. That said, the format is a little stale. In the early days a team of All Stars played against the defending champs. That would never happen in today’s game, and doesn’t need to. With all due respect to the defending-champion Red Wings, there’s no way I want to watch Darren Helm more than I want to watch any of the All Stars. Thinking back to the late-80’s and early-90’s, when divisional rivalries meant more, the Campbell-versus-Wales games often were played with more intensity and a high level of competition. Because division rivalries were all-but-killed by conference-based playoff scheduling, seeing those kinds of games again won’t happen, and is why the current East-versus-West format also seems a little stale. The North America-versus-The World format was plainly, awful. So how to spice things up? I have an idea that will never see the light of day in NHL offices, and most certainly will never come to fruition. But I’ll share anyway. First things first, every player is voted in by fans, not just the starters. The format, for both the All-Star Game and YoungStars Game: NHL All Stars versus World Champions. It’s a little tricky, but I’ll try to show you the way starting with the main ASG. Let’s assume the format were to start next season-- when there will be no All-Star Game because of the Olympic shut-down. Since the league is already shut down, why not have a team of All Stars take on the gold medal-winning team from the Olympics, in prime time, at an NHL rink, two days after the gold medal game? Let’s say Canada wins gold, all the players on the Canadian roster would be taken out of the voting, and the top 12 forwards, six defensemen and two goalies remaining make up their opposition for the All-Star Game. It guarantees two marquee events for the league on set dates. In 2011, the NHL All Stars could take on the winner of the 2010 World Championships. In 2012, the All Stars could take on the winner of the World Cup that looks certain to happen in August 2011. And in 2013 the All Stars take on the 2012 World Champions again before the format returns to NHL All Stars versus Olympic gold medallists in 2014 (this assumes the IIHF isn’t bluffing when they say the NHL has to commit to the Olympics to continue having the World Cup), say three days after the gold medal game. The YoungStars Game will often have to deal with Hockey Canada, which should make it a little easier, but the idea there is simple: a full team of NHL YoungStars (defined by the league as players on entry-level contracts) taking on the recently-crowned World Junior Champions. Admittedly, when European teams win, it would be a major headache to get the players back three weeks later (aside from the fact most of them are playing in the CHL), but when Canadian or American teams win, it would be a thing of beauty for the league. And while Hockey Canada is very protective of their image and logo (see: tangent, below), it’s in the league’s best interests if the players from the winning team wear the dark jersey of the NHL team that holds their rights (and undrafted players will wear their junior team jerseys), while the YoungStars would wear All Star jerseys. It would be an absolute nightmare to actually make this format work every year, but the NHL makes the Winter Classic work, and they make the European tours to start the season work. If they wanted to, they could make this format work. Tangent: I never gave this Canadian Olympic Committee-Hockey Canada logo flap a whole lot of thought before, because it seemed so silly. But it looks like this thing is for real, and I can honestly see both sides of it. So there are two solutions I see. The hard way: we create one governing body for all of Canada’s national teams, sort of like the COC but less ceremonial and more… effectual. The easy way: for the white jerseys/uni set, think New York Rangers white jerseys/uni set, swap the locations of the red and the blue, replace the blue with black, replace the Rangers wordmark with a Canada wordmark; for the dark jersey, think Rangers dark jerseys/uni set, swap the locations of the red and the blue, replace the blue with black, replace the Rangers wordmark with a Canada wordmark. Slap a Hockey Canada logo on the shoulders and it’s done. This whole garbage is over.