The NHL at Midseason

The National Hockey League will hold its 55th All-Star Game Wednesday evening at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas. What is now a contest between the Eastern and Western Conferences has a long history. Starting lineups are voted on by the fans and the coaches are those individuals whose teams lead in point percentage in each conference. The game will be preceded by the All-Star Skills Competition, a competition showing the various talents of the all-stars, and the Young Stars Game, an exhibition game exclusively featuring rookies, playing under slightly modified rules.

First, a bit of history (information from Wikipedia). . .

The first official All-Star Game did not begin until the 1947-48 NHL season, but there have been several occasions in the NHL where benefit games and All-Star teams were created. The first All-Star game in hockey, predated the creation of the NHL, when the Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association held a game on January 2, 1908 in memory of Montreal Wanderers player Hod Stuart, who had drowned three months after the Wanderers won the Stanley Cup. The proceeds of that game, which was won by the Wanderers 10-7 over a team of All-Stars from the rest of the league, went to Stuart's family.

The first NHL All-Star Game, albeit an unofficial one, was held in 1934 to benefit Toronto Maple Leafs player Ace Bailey, who had suffered from a career-ending injury in December 1933. Bailey had been tripped from behind by a Boston Bruins defenseman in retaliation for a check to a Toronto player earlier in the game. Bailey was not the intended target and while Bailey regained consciousness, he later passed out and lapsed into convulsions. While not expected to live, he recovered, but his hockey career was finished.

The game was proposed by the sports editor of the Journal in Montreal, and became a reality at the NHL Board of Governors meeting in 1934. On February 14, 1934, the game took place and during the game a ceremony to retire Bailey's number occurred (the first such occasion in the NHL). The Maple Leafs took on an All-Star team made of players from the other seven teams, which the Leafs won 7-3.

In January 1937, Howie Morenz lost his life after a game between the Montreal Canadiens and the Chicago Black Hawks. Morenz was checked into the boards and he shattered his leg in five separate places. He was taken to the hospital and died March 8, despite the continuing efforts of his teammates, who held parties in his room every night, complete with whiskey and beer. Morenz's #7 was retired and raised to the rafters of the Forum.

While Morenz was in the hospital, plans for a benefit game for Morenz were already under way. The game was not as successful as Bailey's game, primarily because it took place in November, eight months after Morenz's death. There were two All-Star teams, the first being a team of stars from the Canadiens and the Montreal Maroons, the second being an All-Star team made of players from the other teams, with the latter team winning 6-5.

Finally, during the 1947-48 season, the All-Star game became a reality. It has been played every year, except in 1966, when the All-Star Game was moved from the start of the season to its current position in the middle of the season; in 1979 when the 1979 Challenge Cup took its place, in 1987 when Rendez-vous '87 was played. In 1987 the season was shorted by a lockout and again in 2005 when the season was cancelled altogether because of another lockout. Part of the new collective bargaining agreement ending this lockout called for the the NHL would not hold an All-Star Game during Winter Olympic years, so there was no All-Star game during the 2005-2006 NHL season.

For the first twenty years, the All-Star game would feature the defending Stanley Cup Champions against a selection of players from the other five teams. The games were ultimately quite one-sided and many fans and hockey insiders considered options on how to make the All-Star Game more balanced, including one where the All-Star Game was eliminated altogether in favour of a best-of-nine Stanley Cup Final with the proceeds of two of the games going to the players' pension fund, and one which saw a Canadian Teams vs. American Teams format (a somewhat-flawed concept in that nearly all NHL players of the era, whether playing for teams representing U.S. or Canadian cities, were Canadians).

Ultimately, the 5th NHL All-Star Game saw the First NHL All-Star team battle the Second, with the players filling out the First team being from American teams and the Second team being filled with either Hab or Leaf players. The game ended in a 2-2 tie, leaving many fans upset for the second straight year. The same format of First vs. Second with the First team being augmented by players from American teams and the Second being augmented by Leaf or Hab players continued the next year, but the 6th All-Star Game proved to be 60 minutes of boring hockey as the teams skated to a 1-1 tie.

Criticisms of this new format, as well as the boring hockey, was what made the NHL revert the format of the All-Star Game to its original incarnation. Some of the criticisms included the fact that teammates often opposed each other in the All-Star Game under the new format, and some stated that the early date of the game was detrimental to the exposure of the NHL in the States, being held at the same time as the World Series and the National Football League season. In what would be later a reality, a newspaper columnist suggested the game should be played mid-season and that fans should choose their starting lineup.

I urge you to watch the NHL All-Star Game this week as nobody is really watching hockey and they need a break. So barring contraction of the league (don't get me started), we are stuck with what we got and we need to support it. Go Rangers!