Tomas Plekanec – Montreal – 48,749 votes, 12th among forwards

PK Subban – Montreal – 41,268 votes, 9th among defencemen

Carey Price – Montreal – 71,199 votes, first among goalies

So I thought I’d post this right now, before everyone in the hockey blogosphere does:

Waaaaaaaaaaah, Price, Plekanec and Subban don’t deserve to get spots for the All Star game! Especially Subban, he’s lacking respeeeeeeect! Waaaaaaaaaaaaah habs fans are stuffing the ballot again! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, this is so stupid, oh my god habs fans are making a disgrace out of this…. Booooo! Hiss!

I’m thrilled by the All Star Game.

But after reading some of the All Star weekend coverage around the Internet, here is apparently the kind of things I should write to be trendy:

“The All Star Game is a COMPLETE JOKE, it’s a meaningless game, and I couldn’t care less about it! The voting thing was an utter SCANDAL, because Gary Bettman is too moronic to see that stupid cheating fans in Montreal and Anaheim used scripts to send their players to the game. Komisarek is clearly not deserving to be an all star, and I’m OUTRAGED that Ovechkin isn’t in the starting lineup. But really, I don’t mind, because this is only a meaningless game. And now, Alex Kovalev is named captain of the eastern team? What?? Are you FREAKING kidding me? This must be a joke! Oh look, now all the good players are faking injuries to avoid going to the game! They should be ashamed, this is an INSULT to the fans. But hahaha! it’ll teach stupid Gary Bettman! Fortunately, this game is totally meaningless, so I really don’t care at all. Wait, what? there won’t be any red wings? Oh my god, this is such a travesty of an all star game! Dear Lord, Bettman dared to suspend Lidstrom and Datsyuk because they’re not coming! What a JERK! Ah Ah! Look at Crosby who’s going in Montreal just to please Gary fucking Bettman, boy I hate him, he’s such an ass-licking whiner! Now I hope my players won’t get injured in that joke of a MEANINGLESS game!”

There’s whining all over the place about anything related to the ASG, and I’m really fed up with this.

OF COURSE it’s a meaningless game, that’s the whole fucking point, people! This game is supposed to be a way for the nhl to thank the fans, to showcase the best talents in the league, and to make tons of money. And this is just what they do. That’s why when the best players refuse to go to the game, or have suspect day to day injuries just before the all star game, the league is pissed, and penalizes them. I don’t see anything wrong with this. Either Lidstrom and Datsyuk are really hurt, and they wouldn’t have played the next game anyway, in which case their sanction is void, or they are faking injuries to miss the all star game, and I think it’s normal for the league to take exception to this kind of thing.

I know Gary Bettman is a jerk, everyone agrees on this. But it would be nice if once in a while, people would actually stop bitching about any decision made by the nhl. The All Star Game is supposed to be a fun break during the season, a rare event where we have the opportunity to see the greatest players alive play together, something that is otherwise only possible on video games. So yes, I’m excited by the fact that maybe I’ll get to see Lecavalier, Malkin, Ovechkin, Kane, Thornton, Iginla, Bouwmeester, Chara, Boyle, Souray, Price and Luongo on the ice at the same time. ESPECIALLY for a meaningless game where nothing prevents them from being creative and having fun, in front of an excited crowd.

Well, to be fair, there’s one thing I think people should whine about: Simple Plan, a band who so cleverly titled their last album “No Pads, No Helmets…Just Balls”, will perform during the second intermission. They suck.

Tonight the Caps are in Montreal. It’s gonna be pretty interesting, because they’re just as hot as the Habs, except they’ve just been shutout by Mason and the Blue Jackets, which means they’ll be pretty fired up.

Of course, with the Caps come Coach Bruce Boudreau. You see, Bruce is all pissed up, because he finds it APPALING that Ovechkin won’t be in the starting lineup at the All Star Game because he was not voted in, and ABSOLUTELY REVOLTING that players like Semin and Green are left out because of the “one player per team” unwritten rule.

Semin, facing his children in the future

Hmmm, well, Bruce, you know what? SUCK IT!

It may be sad, but Semin won’t be an all star until the NHL decides to tweak its skills competition to include a Bongo challenge.

They say that I’m a clown, making too much dirty sound…

~~~

Speaking of the All Star Game, I know the NHL is trying to make all the money it can with the event, but the amount of corporate sponsorship is really baffling. Just for fun, here is an actual excerpt of a “news” item from the All Star Game section of the NHL website:

The game’s most dazzling shootout artists will attempt to wow the voting public in the NHL Mobile brought to you by Bell Breakaway Challenge and the classes of 2007-08 and 2008-09 will battle for youthful supremacy when NHL All-Star Weekend gets underway with the 2009 Honda/NHL All-Star Super Skills Competition Saturday night, Jan. 24, at Montreal’s Bell Centre.
The realigned NHL YoungStars Game presented by Upper Deck and the fan-judged NHL Mobile brought to you by Bell Breakaway Challenge will join SuperSkills mainstays such as the Bridgestone NHL Fastest Skater, McDonald’s NHL Accuracy Shooting and Cisco NHL Hardest Shot competitions to determine the League’s best in various disciplines.

Wow… And they didn’t even mention the “XM NHL All-Star Fan Balloting presented by 2K Sports”, the “Scotiabank NHL Fan Fav Breakaway Challenge”, and the “Gatorade NHL Elimination Shootout”.

That’s a bit overwhelming. Come on NHL, I’ll never be able to drink Gatorade, open a bank account, buy wathever Cisco sells, eat a BigMac, and buy some tires to go with my new honda on the same week end!

Allright. Now, I think I’ll enjoy my NHL Toyota brought to you by Gillette Super nap. Or maybe I’ll just have a Classic fan-judged Smoothest Reebok cup of NHL coffee, presented to you by Amazon.com.