Hey man - you're an all-star - get your game on - go, play

It's All-Star Weekend in the NHL this weekend. Yawn.

I've long been over the All-Star game. The skills competition might pique my interest from time to time but the actual game is hugely boring. Although if Gary Bettman wants to increase scoring in the NHL, maybe every game should be an All-Star game, what with all the scoring usually involved. That was one thing I never really understood. Given, the All-Star game should have the best goal-scorers playing but it should also have the best goaltenders playing. To me, that meant the scores should be 2-1 or 3-2, not 12-9 (in 2007) or 8-7 (in 2008).

Perhaps I would care more if there was some benefit to actually winning the All-Star game. The format is now Western Conference vs. Eastern Conference but the winning conference doesn't get any kind of advantage. I'm not sure what that advantage/prize/benefit would be, but there's got to be something. Without a reason for winning, the game is really just a watered-down version of the sport, with the best players playing mediocre at best.

What I do find interesting is that players who are chosen as all-stars but do not attend are penalized with a one-game suspension. This I don't even understand. I know Gary Bettman is desperately trying to sell the game but punishing players for not attending? Maybe they just want a break. Two notables suspensions are Nicklas Lidstrom and Pavel Datsyuk, both of Detroit, who will miss a game next week. Frankly, I think it should be the player's decision to attend, if chosen as an all-star. Every year, there are plenty of great players not chosen for the game so if your first choice can't make it, then move along to the next...and the next...and the next...however many times it takes to round out the team.

But really, in the end, it doesn't matter all that much. The game is really just a way for the NHL to make some money, for the players' pension fund to fatten up a bit more and for avid NHL fans to actually figure out what to do with a Saturday night when there's no relevant game to watch.

One bright spot: Zdeno Chara and his charity challenge during the Skills Competition. THIS is the kind of thing that makes it great.

When good teams go bad

It's Saturday night, which means Hockey Night in Canada on the good ol' CBC. Tonight it's Montreal at Ottawa. The high-flying Habs have been having a wonderful season, which only sweetens this season being the Canadiens' centennial. Ottawa, on the other hand, is not so hot this season.

So what happened to the mighty Senators? This is the team that went to the Stanley Cup finals in the 2006-07 season; sure, they lost to Anaheim in five games, but they went to the final. The following season saw them finish seventh in their conference and lose round one of the playoffs in four games, to the Pittsburgh Penguins. And now, a season and a half after that stellar Cup run, the Senators are fifth of five in their division and 13th in the Eastern Conference. They are actually doing worse than the Toronto Maple Leafs! So, again, what happened???

Over on www.tsn.ca, James Duthie offers his opinion and it seems valid: the team has lost their mojo, their spark, their drive. Okay, I can buy that but what makes a team lose their confidence? Sure, losing the Stanley Cup final to a team originally founded by Disney can take you down a few pegs but this is a team that is still stacked with stellar players (Dany Heatley, Daniel Alfredsson and Jason Spezza immediately come to mind).

What do I think happened? Why, I thought you'd never ask. It all rests with the goaltending. Ray Emery led the way in net when the Sens went to the final in 06/07 but fell from grace the following season, partly due to poor on-ice performance, partly due to off-ice antics and infighting with teammates. Since then, Ottawa hasn't been able to get a solid starting goaltender. This season, Ottawa has the goaltending tandem of Alex Auld and Martin Gerber, who are both good goalies in their own rights. But they just aren't bringing that standing-on-his-head play that seems to be needed in the NHL today to make a team a contender.

Of course, having not-as-strong goaltending doesn't break a team, but it can start them on the downward spiral, resulting in the aforementioned overall loss of mojo. Where do they go from here? Like any team that finds itself on the wrong side of playoff contention, they should rebuild. This might mean a fire sale of their talent, perhaps letting go of one of the Heatley/Alfredsson/Spezza trinity and focusing more on the younger talent. This could be good (see: Pittsburgh Penguins) or it could be bad (see: Tampa Bay Lightning) but it certainly has to be better than staying on their current course because, really, no one wants to be the team that is worse than the Leafs.

The beginning

Those who know me know I'm a hockey fan. I like to think of myself as a big hockey fan, full of knowledge and insight and pithy analysis. I want to start writing here to see if this is actually true.

The simple fact is that I love hockey. While I have favourite teams, I like to think of myself as not just a fan of those teams but as a fan of the game itself. My main fandom rests in the NHL but I'm also a huge fan of most Team Canada endeavours, the IIHF and I try to follow the AHL, with varying degrees of success. I've also got opinions and tend to overdo it with my friends, so this is also a good place for me to sound off on the good and not-so-good of my beloved sport.

So here goes...