No, the NHL all-star game shouldn’t be a priority

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For the second consecutive year, Alex Ovechkin said he would be taking the all-star game off.

“It’s a hard decision, but I have to listen to my body,” Ovechkin said in December.

Presumably, his body is telling him something about the swim-up bar at the Four Seasons in Cabo and how great the pina coladas are there.

When Ovechkin did this last year, after a long run to a Stanley Cup, everyone was understanding. But two in a row is a problem. It is the beginning of what NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly refers to with some alarm as “a trend.”

“I do believe there has to be a little more urgency among the players to make [the all-star game] a priority,” Daly told ESPN this week. “Because I think it should be a priority.”

No, it shouldn’t. Not if you’re a professional hockey player. Being named an all-star is certainly a priority, for ego-boosting purposes if no other. Getting on a plane so that you can go somewhere and dress up like one is not.

What that is is irritating. If you are in Ovechkin’s boat – old, crotchety and fully focused on April and beyond – it’s a hindrance to performance.

The all-star game started with a good idea – the testimonial. It was a benefit held for players who’d died or had left the game. It wasn’t a contest so much as a celebration. The hockey part was beside the fact.

But because all corporations hate to see money being spread around that they don’t get a piece of, the league formalized matters in the 1940s. Since then, the endeavour has been in constant, creeping expansion. What was once a night is now a weekend (if four-day weekends are your norm). What was once just a game is now also a miniaturized version of the Twelve Labours of Hercules.

Who goes real fast? Who shoots real hard? Who can hit a target? Who can balance a teammate on their shoulders while running up and down the aisles in skates?

We all remember this sort of thing from grade school – Game Day or Activity Day or Sport Day. What is was called depended on where you went to school. And, aside from getting the day off class, we all hated it then.

Everyone knew who was going to win Game Day. Mainly, it was an exercise in making everyone else feel terrible about themselves. Even the kids who were sporty.

One understands why the league likes this so much. First, the money. Second, the money. And third, something about money.

Somewhere further down the list, it’s in keeping with the reality-TV tastes of the typical North American entertainment consumer. Hockey can be hard to understand. A bunch of people skating in a circle is not.

It’s easy to package and promote. It can be baked down into easily digestible snippets for YouTube. If an NHL game is a meal, the all-star skills competition is candy.

The game itself is hockey on speed. No discernible attempt at defence and a ton of goals. At some future point, they can eliminate the goalies and make the whole thing a shooting gallery. Maybe get up to a basketball score. The punters will love it.

What’s harder to understand is why the players continue to participate. Sure, being selected to the team is a feather. But going to the trouble of actually playing is pointless.

At this time of year, everyone in the league is a little dinged up and weary of the travel. The playoffs still seem a long way away. The pros don’t get many holidays in December. Everyone would appreciate some time off.

One assumes a few NHLers continue to trudge off for more work because they always have done. Hockey players are good at a lot of things, but going wherever and doing whatever they’re told is prime among them.

This is why Ovechkin is such a problem for the league. He’s never been much for doing the done thing. It’s why he continues to be the most interesting person in the NHL.

He is apparently the first person to approach this issue in a businesslike fashion – with a cost-benefit analysis of either option.

The benefit to him of playing is nothing. Ovechkin’s been chosen an all-star a dozen times. As long as it’s based on a vote, he will be chosen an all-star until he retires. What does he care any more?

He may very well believe the cost to be substantial. That’s two more flights, several days of media appointments during which someone will eventually get so bored of asking him about hockey they’ll start in on Putin and then the game itself.

What’s the benefit of not playing? Nine consecutive days off for him, to do whatever it is he likes. (I’m picturing a water slide and an open bar.)

The cost? A one-game suspension on either side of the all-star break. He gets to decide which game he’d prefer.

Nine days off. For a guy who makes US$10-million a year. For a team that is the leading points-getter in the NHL.

That isn’t a suspension. It’s an unpaid vacation.

Daly didn’t threaten an increased punishment because that would have to bargained with the NHL Players’ Association. He instead leaned hard on the idea that the players have a duty to perform.

That’s fine, as far as it goes. If the best players in hockey think that their primary duty is showing up at the circus and balancing a ball on their nose, more power to them. It’s their circus, too.

But if a few gave it more than a few minutes consideration, they might instead decide – as Ovechkin has done – that their main job is winning games in the NHL. Anything that interferes with that job is superfluous.

Should that way of thinking ever catch some traction, the all-star game is in real trouble.