Don't Vote for Rory
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Don't Vote for Rory (written for Hockeyleaks.com)
Don't Vote for Rory Marc Valeri Hockeyleaks.com December 28th, 2006
As time goes on, the NHL is making many changes; from arenas, to franchise locations, to on-ice rules and officiating methods. This, however, is going too far.
The NHL All-Star game, which originated in 1947-48, is a fan-voted game, where many of the NHL’s superstars, either by conference (East vs. West) or by continent (North America vs. World). The concept is fine by me, however, the way the league executes this needs reconstruction.
To begin, I just want to say that I believe that the NHL All-Star game is a great idea. I, personally, prefer North America vs. the World, as it offers a much larger hook in terms of consequence and bragging rights. By having the East face the West, I don’t feel very obligated to watch—especially with the new NHL schedule, the West faces the East very rarely—sometimes, not even once during the 82-game season.
On another side note, I am a very big fan of the NHL Skills Competition. Though the results of this have no bearing on anything once the league gets running again, I live to see who can shoot the hardest year after year, as well as watching every other Skills Competition event. I am also a fan of the YoungStars game, as I love following the future of the game.
The All-Star game, for starters, need not be voted in by fans. The majority of hockey fans worldwide, as much as I hate to say it, are incompetent hockey fans. Players get voted in by salary numbers, total goals or points in a season, popularity in their respective cities, or, the one that bothers me the most, most highlight reel appearances. Numbers do not always equal success. They are only half the game. There are many, many stars in the NHL who do not put up 120 points per season that are near irreplaceable on their respective squads. The Calgary Flames would have a hard time replacing Matthew Lombardi; the Carolina Hurricanes would have trouble replacing a guy like Glen Wesley; the Detroit Red Wings would not be able to replace guys like Kris Draper and Kirk Maltby. There are many players in the league deserving of an All-Star spot that do not lead the league in any category, but are crucial to a team’s success. After all, hockey is a team game—no one player can do everything, it simply isn’t possible.
Secondly, the All-Star game needs to be voted in by coaches, GM’s, and other team officials. Voting six times like Roberto Luongo is outrageous. How is that fair? It isn’t. Players vote numerous times for themselves as well as for teammates, many of which should have their name on the ballot. Everyone, and by everyone, I mean the white-collar, ‘upper-class’ NHL representatives, should be able to vote once per category, meaning, you vote once for who should play in the All-Star game, once for Skills, once for YoungStars, etc. This creates equality in the league, not the biased, unfair methods the NHL uses today. Not to mention the automatic voting programs and machines used by ‘fans’ worldwide that make for a certain player to be voted for daily or hourly.
For example, in the NBA, the Toronto Raptors currently have a promotion, where voting for Toronto Raptors’ All-Star eligible’s, such as T.J. Ford, Morris ‘Mo Pete’ Peterson, and Chris ‘CB4’ Bosh a certain number of times (I believe it is 10, but am not 100% certain) results in a fan getting a Raptors flag. In addition, once the three eligible Raptors have been voted for to represent the Eastern Conference for the All-Star game, the rest of the ballot does not need to be filled out. Simply, voting for the three Raptors equals a completed ballot.
The reasoning? I don’t know. But there must be a way around this. Vancouver Canucks seldom used defenseman Rory Fitzpatrick is being voted into the NHL All-Star game. This man has played 20 games, recording a whopping 0 points. 0! Statistically this season, in terms of points, I am equivalent to Rory Fitzpatrick. Hell, George W. Bush is equivalent to Rory Fitzpatrick. The ‘Vote for Pedro [crossed out] Rory’ began as a joke, but, due to the lack of intelligence of the average hockey fan, Rory Fitzpatrick is taking a spot away from a deserving NHL star, who’s on-ice play should earn him a spot in the game’s most watched event, other than the Olympics and the Stanley Cup Championships. My All-Star team will follow at the end of the article.
On a last note, the possible NHL realignment concept that it floating around is very intriguing. For those who are unaware of what I mean, the NHL is thinking of collapsing the league from six divisions to four. In addition to this, two of the league’s newest teams in the Atlanta Thrashers and Columbus Blue Jackets, will swap conferences. This entire possibility has arisen due the frequent complaining about the NHL schedule. Fans, GM’s, and players all agree that the NHL enforces too many divisional games, and, I assume by this, too many playoff spots are won or lost by this method, and the role of spoiler becomes too easy. Over the next few weeks, the league will decide whether or not it should be reviewed by vote, and as of now, it is only an idea. If it does pass the vote, and the league does approve of the schedule change, the NHL could see the change occur as soon as next year, around the same time as the possible rebirth of the Kansas City Penguins, Winnipeg Jets, or Hartford Whalers (that would be a nice little vintage kick to today’s NHL, wouldn’t it?)
To put it as basic as possible, this is what the new schedule could bring to the league; - Four divisions instead of six. The Eastern (one 8-team and one 7-team division) and Western Conferences (one 8-team and one 7-team division) — 8 Team West: Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Anaheim, Los Angeles, San Jose, Colorado and Phoenix - 7 Team West: Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Nashville, Dallas, Minnesota and Eastern Conference newcomer Atlanta - 7 Team East: Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Buffalo, Boston, Pittsburgh and Western Conference newcomer Columbus. - 8 Team East: New York Rangers, New York Islanders, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Washington, Tampa Bay, Florida and Carolina. - By mixing up the conferences, the league believes that this will positively influence the time zone differences across North America, and would allow for easier TV start times. By making more games in the same time zone, the result should be less games at odd start times, meaning viewers will not have to stay up to the wee hours of the morning to finish watching their squad. This would also cut down on travel for teams going from city to city. - The biggest difference, to me at least, is that the top four playoff seeds would come from the top two teams in each division. Four wild-card playoff berths would then be battled among the teams with the next highest point totals. So it would remain eight playoff teams in each conference. In other words, the top two teams of each division clinch, while the remaining 11 teams duke it out for a chance at Lord Stanley.
And now, for those still reading, it is time for my All-Star team. I refuse to choose players who make big bucks, and I am trying to find talent outside of the scoring leaders. I am a blue-collar style hockey fan, and am simply going by a team of my favourite players in the league (players are in no specific order).
Goalies: Martin Brodeur, Ryan Miller, and Mikka Kipprusoff. (Notables: Marc Denis, Marc-Andre Fleury, Dominik Hasek, Cristobal Huet, Cam Ward, Manny Legace, Evgeni Nabokov, Jussi Markannen, Jamie McLennan, Ty Conklin, Andrew Raycroft)
Forwards: Chris Drury, Kris Draper, Matthew Lombardi, John Madden, Sidney Crosby, Brian Rolston, Joe Sakic, Scott Gomez, Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk, Peter Forsberg, Patrice Bergeron, Milan Hejduk, Rene Bourque, Rick Nash, Daniel Briere, Maxim Afinigenov, Martin Lapointe, Evgeni Malkin, Jarome Iginla, Jordan Staal, Mike Fisher, Peter Schaefer, Mike Peca, Mike Modano, Martin St. Louis, Kirk Maltby, Darren McCarty, Boyd Gordon, Milan Michalek, Marek Svatos, Wojtek Wolski, Sean Avery, Shawn Horcoff, Joffrey Lupul, Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Brad Boyes, Tomas Vanek, Erik Cole, Tony Amonte, Brian Smolinski, Paul Stastny, Tomas Holmstrom, Ryan Malone, Colby Armstrong
Defenseman: Nicklas Lidstrom, Brian Leetch, Dion Phaneuf, Glen Wesley, Marc-Andre Bergeron, Danny Markov, Jason Smith, Scott Neidermayer, Brian Campbell, Roman Hamrlik, Ken Klee, Jon Klemm, Sheldon Souray
- I am missing several of ‘my’ players on this list. No, this is not a team, as there are too many people, however, if I were to make a team, salary in mind, these players listed would make the cut.
Merry Christmas everyone, and all the best for 2007.
