The first competition was for the Fastest Skater, featuring Eastern Conference representatives Jay Bouwmeester, Jeff Carter, and Zach Parise, and Western representatives Brian Campbell, and for the first time, YoungStars game representatives Mason Raymond and Andrew Cogliano. In the end, youth prevailed and Andrew Cogliano of the Oilers won the Fastest Skater competition with a time of 14.31 seconds in a full revolution of the ice. WEST: 1 EAST: 0
Second came the highly anticipated Breakaway Challenge, featuring some of the most creative players in the game to each showcase their insane moves for 1 minute a piece, in which the fans were able to text in the winner. Rounding out the competition was Alex Ovechkin, Martin St. Louis (replacing Sid Crosby), Steven Stamkos, Patrick Kane, and home-town hero Ryan Getzlaf. Although Getzlaf and St. Louis probably had the most creative moves up their sleeves, Ovechkin won the crowd over with his use of props. WEST: 1 EAST: 1
The third competition was the Youngstars game, featuring a (3) 6 minute period game that pinned the league's best Rookies against the Sophomores, in a tilt that saw the Rookies coming out on top, featuring Toronto blue-liner and Saskatoon native Luke Schenn.
Fourth came the shooting accuracy competition, something that Ray Bourqe perfected in his career. After many shooters, a tie resulted between Ottawa's Dany Heatley and Pittsburgh's Evgeni Malkin, who each knocked out 4 targets in 4 shots. The tie-break was a nailbiter, which Malkin's 3/4 slightly edged Heatley's 2/4. WEST: 1 EAST: 2
The next competition was also highly anticipated, mostly because of two particular shooters. Sheldon Souray of the Oilers, and Zdeno Chara of the Bruins. Recently, reports from the Oilers' skills competition surfaced that Souray had broken the 106 mph mark on a shot, but in the end, Chara shot for over 105 mph, breaking the previous All-Star record held by Al Iafrate.
WEST: 1 EAST: 3
The final competition of the night was an Old-school style "Elimination" Shootout, that featured all 36 players, shooting on goaltenders Tim Thomas, J.S. Giguere, Niklas Backstrom, and Henrik Lundqvist until their was one winner. Boston's Marc Savard put up a good fight until the end, but Phoenix's captain Shane Doan took the competition, giving the West one more point, but ultimately a loss to the East by a score of 3-2 in the skills competition. I guess we'll have to wait until the results of the big game today.
Overall, all-star weekend has featured some of the best talent that the league has to offer, and that includes the 3 Saskatchewan representatives, made up of YoungStar Luke Schenn, San Jose captain Patrick Marleau, and Anaheim's Ryan Getzlaf.
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A scary moment in the AHL the other night has resulted in more discussions about fighting in hockey. Regina, SK. native Garret Klotz, of the Philadelphia Flyers AHL affiliate Philadelphia Phantoms, engaged in a fight with Kevin Westgarth of the Manchester Monarchs. After a lengthy tilt, Klotz went down near the Monarchs' bench from 3 very strong shots to the head, and suffered both facial lacerations, and started convulsing. We would provide a clip for you to watch to get an idea, but I just saw this clip on SportsCentre, and trust me, it is quite graphic and a very sad image to watch.
Fortunately, Klotz has recently been released from a Pennsylvania hospital and is in good condition to make an expected full-recovery. Just another incident in hockey to raise question as to what place fighting has in our sport. Very unfortunate, but we are all glad that this tough Sask kid will be back on the ice in no time.
Enjoy the All-Star game,
PP
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