NHL All-Star Game is Just Fine

When I hear the annual complaints about what’s supposedly wrong with the NHL’s All-Star Game and surrounding festivities, I’m reminded of the famous quip made by Heath Ledger’s Joker.

Why so serious?

It may be hard to believe for people who’ve been sports fans their whole lives, but being an athlete is a job just like any other occupation. Especially today, when training and nutrition must be taken seriously if one wants to survive, there are very few true off days for an elite pro, especially during a season that has never been longer.

Yet apparently 82 games, all played at intensity levels that increase yearly, plus the best playoff tournament in sports, aren’t enough to satiate most hockey fans. (Actually, this applies to all sports fans as well…complaints about the other major league all-star exhibitions are just as tiresome.)

Folks, the NHL All-Star Game is just fine. It’s us fans who have changed. We demand stronger, better, faster and evidently that includes what has always been a just an enjoyable night at the rink.

As much as some may want everything to mean something, it can be rejuvenating to take a day or two to celebrate the reason most of us follow and play sports: for the fun of it.

There will be plenty of time over the next four months to turn up the seriousness quotient as the Stanley Cup playoffs pull into view. For now, let’s let the players we enjoy watching put their prodigious talents on display and share a few laughs while they’re at it.

Hey, by the way, did you see all the goals on Sunday? Now all we have to do is convince the NHL that hockey is more fun when more pucks go in the net…