The party has wrapped up in Montreal, but there are still a few unresolved issues.
I have nothing but the utmost respect for the Detroit Red Wings ownership and management, they are beacons in a sometimes foggy mindset of the NHL but one couldn't help but note the apparent hypocrisy when they came to the defence of "injured" players Nik Lidstrom and Pavel Datsyuk.
Holland went to great lengths in detailing how both players were legitimately injured and needed to miss the All-Star affair. He even revealed that Lidstrom has had an ongoing battle with tendonitis in his elbow for years and that there was even a small tear in the elbow. Yet it was Detroit that was at the front of the movement to deny information to the media, and by extension, the fan, regarding player injuries this season.
The Red Wings claim they did it because they were afraid players would be "targeted" by opposing injury when they came back to play. Hence we get the 'upper body' and 'lower body' designations with no clear idea of what an injury is let alone how long the player might be out of the lineup. As an aside, is a well-bitten thumb (Andrew Peters from Jarrko Ruutu) considered an upper body, lower body or perhaps outer extremity injury?
So now we know that Lidstrom has an elbow problem, Datsyuk is nursing something that is impacted by skating on soft ice and that Columbus goaltender Steve Mason has been "playing through some back spasms the past few weeks" according to Columbus GM Scott Howson.
Sorry guys, but you can't have it both ways. Exposing injuries when it suits your interests and hiding them for the same reason is a slap in the face to fans whether it's a regular-season game or the All-Star exhibition.
If your player is hurt any fan contemplating paying the price of a ticket has a right to know before he makes that purchase. Your releasing information when it suits your purposes and denying your fans the right to do the same is not only hypocritical, it's flat out wrong.
A further thought to the suspension of those two players: In my mind the suspension of Lidstrom and Datsyuk was one of those damned if you do or don't situations. One could argue that Lidstrom, given his years of outstanding service deserved the benefit of the doubt in regards to a somewhat shaky directive on how many games missed. Players play hurt all the time and they do it out of a commitment to winning, respect for their teams, their teammates and, by extension, the league. Skipping an exhibition to get healthy is not out of line. That said, what started as just a trickle of questionable injuries that looked to be nothing more than excuse for an in-season vacation has grown to the point that there is an epidemic of players not wanting to play in the All-Star game. That shows a lack of respect to fans and that's not acceptable either.
Worse, the suspension shows that this Commissioner is seemingly incapable of compromise and working within a policy of mutual benefit. It should have been relatively easy to work out some sort of compromise had the league itself not treated the selection process as some sort of joke. When the defending Stanley Cup champion can't get a single player on the starting squad why should players in Detroit think that the game should be taken seriously? The fan voting was a sham and though a lot of people throw up their hands and say "so what", the flawed voting had an impact. Players see that the league doesn't care about the "honour" so why should they?.
If Bettman and company had done a better job of defending the honour of being an All-Star Game starter - and that starts with a better process for determining who they are - then it would be a lot easier for the players to see it as such. Besides, the suspension - or whatever the league has opted to call it - hardly addresses the fact that some players who might want to go are 'encouraged' by their clubs to skip the festivities for the good of the remainder of the season.
Remember when Martin Brodeur missed the game last season because he 'needed to rest' and Roberto Luongo needed to be with his pregnant wife who wasn't due until April? What about when Mats Sundin disappeared? Where those player decisions or were they made by coaches and general managers who knew those players represented their best (and some would argue only) chance for success in the playoffs or even making the playoffs later that spring?
We here at Sportsnet.ca would like to know exactly what day will the Commissioner suspend a team for that thought process.
In this case the league is a victim of its own indifference. Unfortunately the Commissioner's history of using a sledge hammer where a little persuasion would do turned an awkward situation into a public relations disaster.
If hockey is a religion in Montreal it is a fickle one. Habs fans, filling their self-proclaimed temple of hockey, regularly booed Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas throughout the third period. The Bruins are among Montreal's greatest rivals, but the worshipers quickly converted to the work of St. Thomas of Hubtown when he made game-saving plays in the overtime and the shutout to preserve a win for the Eastern Conference where the Habs happen to reside.
Not to go unnoticed is the fact that Montreal goaltender Carey Price started the game, but Thomas was in net when it mattered most.
The view from here is that it was sacrilegious that Montreal's Alex Kovalev won MVP honors when it was Thomas that made the game-saving plays. Kovalev had two goals in regulation and what stood as the game-winner in the shootout, but in a game that featured no defence and goaltending designed not to create even a hint of an injury (see Price's performance on both Saturday and Sunday), Thomas was brilliant while most everyone else was merely going through the motions.
This is the second time in as many All-Star games that Thomas won it for the East. Just because goalies don't play the whole game doesn't mean they don't have an impact when they are on the ice. Thomas was the outstanding performer in the game.
Nobody asked me, but I can't help but wonder why the NHL is so fine with the idea that anybody can vote as often as they want for their favorite player to go to the All-Star game, but when fans and media start expressing their opinions on the role of fighting in the game the Commissioner cuts them off at their texting thumbs.
"Based on the conversations I've had with lots of constituencies - players, owners, managers, coaches - I don't think there's any appetite to abolish fighting in the game," Bettman said at his All-Star Game presser. "There are lots of reasons for that, including that it has been a part of the game."
True and drunk driving used to be a part of the passage into adulthood, but not many people subscribe to that old saw anymore.
There are lots of reasons to get fighting out of the game and it might be interesting if the Commissioner interviewed a few focus groups made up of people who don't have an agenda and maybe even might like hockey more if that element of the game were reshaped.
Aside from the fans and media point of view, however, I'd be interested in what the corporate lawyers might say. The League put up nets at each end of the rink after a fan was struck by a puck and died. Bettman defended that decision because of the legal ramifications that might fall on the league if it were ever to happen again, especially without them taking some sort of protective action. And while it's true the league has not had a death attributable to fighting, it appears to be coming close and to not be proactive in the wake of what's happened in other leagues, well that's a touchy legal issue.
Conversely it's hard to blame the Commissioner for being a little testy about the media reports that certain franchises are in huge financial trouble.
He always downplays the severity of the financial issues facing the game but in fairness to him he's right when he says "We have a pretty good track record of fixing franchises that get themselves into trouble."
It would be nice if the league didn't have franchises that get themselves into financial trouble and bankruptcy isn't exactly the best way of "fixing franchises", but there are still teams in Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Ottawa and they've all had a world of financial trouble and are still going.
Of course there might not be as many problems if the league were a little more judicious in regards to where it places teams and a whole lot more professional in regards the due diligence process when it comes to finding investors to keep them afloat.
