The Sports Curmudgeon

I read the following sentence in a report somewhere:

“The NHL will not have an All Star Game in 2006.”

I have not bothered to look in a thousand places to confirm that statement because if it is true, then I’m happy; and if it is not true, then I wish that it were true. And more than that, if the NHL manages to play out its 2005/06 season without an All Star Game, I’d like for the NHL to become a role model for all the other leagues.

That’s right; I think it is high time to cancel – not postpone but cancel – each and every All-Star Game in each and every professional sport. All Star Games represent an idea whose time has come and whose time has long passed. Get rid of all of them.

The NFL Pro Bowl happens after the season is over in Honolulu. Any player who participates can get a week in Hawaii on someone else’s nickel with or without his wife and kids – if you catch my drift here. I’ve been to Hawaii; it’s not like being banished to Siberia to have to go there and spend a week and play a game for about three hours and get a bonus for doing so. Even under those circumstances, lots of players opt not to go. The best players in the game may or may not show up even in these idyllic conditions. Even they know that this game is a farce and is best ignored.

So why argue with them? I don’t know a single sports fan who says at the conclusion of the Super Bowl that he/she is looking forward to the Pro Bowl next weekend and wouldn’t it be a great idea to reprise this wonderful party we’ve been having all day next weekend. If those words have ever been spoken, it would have to have been by someone in an advanced state of inebriation or by the Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce of Honolulu. Get rid of this nonsense.

The NHL All Star Game isn’t even hockey as it relates to the product that the league puts on the ice on a day-to-day basis. An All Star Team that scores a mere five goals in a game is more likely to be blown out of the arena than anything else. Teams that score five goals in an NHL game are rarely blown out of the arena. So, either the All Star Game is not representative of NHL hockey or the play of the regular teams is so inferior to that of the All Star Teams who practice not at all, that you have to wonder why anyone would go and see that inferior product and pay some heavy bread for that “privilege”. Get that garbage out of here.

The NBA All Star Game is merely an excuse for a weekend of partying by rich young athletes and by the league honchos as they wine and dine with their corporate partners who use the weekend as rewards for sales folks and junior execs. More people care about the Slam Dunk contest than the All Star Game. No one cares about the “Rookies/Sophomores Game”. No one plays any defense – unless you consider it good defense to watch your man blow by you and to keep your eyes on him as he soars up for a dunk. The game is a primary example of a travishamockery; put it out of its misery; put a wooden stake in its heart.

The baseball All Star Game is far and away the best of the lot because baseball has much more of an individual component to it than the other sports mentioned above. And the All Star Game used to be interesting – if not riveting. But now it’s merely a three-day break in the schedule with a stupid Home Run Derby and a “travel day” sandwiching a game that involves pitchers going about an inning at most and line-up shuffling of gargantuan proportions. Other than the bonuses that players get via their contracts for All Star appearances, it is pretty obvious that most of them really don’t care about playing that game. As with the Pro Bowl, why argue with them. Just stop doing this.

Of course, there are those other leagues who feel that having an All Star Game is the cachet they need in order to try to pretend that they are a major player in the sporting firmament. There is probably a minuscule niche market for All Star Games involving minor league baseball and hockey and Major League Soccer and lacrosse and the like. That niche market does not include me and if each and every one of those All Star Games were to dry up and blow away tomorrow, I wouldn’t even know the difference. That’s how important they are in the sporting firmament.

The NHL has taken a lot of heat over the past year of so because of its tortuous labor negotiations. Here’s a chance for them to reclaim some positive attention. Cancel this All Star Game and then announce that there will never again be an NHL All Star Game. The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…