Tonight is the 2012 NHL All-Star Game in Ottawa, and for the second year in a row the rosters were selected by way of a "Fantasy Draft" where two pre-selected captains chose players for their teams one by one. And just like gym class in middle school, the team captains only chose their friends - Team Zdeno Chara picked up all the Bruins, while Team Daniel Alfredsson selected all of the (way too many) Senators.
Like most games of it's kind, the NHL All-Star Game has received yearly flack for not being very entertaining, or for the players not taking it seriously. Unlike most leagues, however, the NHL has a history of being proactive in finding ways to make it more entertaining, then scraping them when they don't work (looking at you, World-Series-Home-Field-Advantage-Giving Baseball ASG; though thanks for giving St. Louis Game 7 this year!). In the 90s, the NHL decided to celebrate the growing internationalization of the league by dividing the AS teams into North American players and "World" players, thereby giving credence to Americans who consider themselves separate from the rest of the planet. The novelty was fun for a couple years, but wore off quickly, as the league decided to go back to Western Conference vs. Eastern Conference alignment.
And for the same reasons, it's only a matter of time before the Fantasy Draft goes the way of the glowpuck or the Hartford Whalers.
While I'm sure there are a number of general NHL fans, I don't think it's any trouble to say at least 90% of hockey fans have a specific team they passionately root for and will support in anyway they can until the day they die. Obviously for me, that team is the Blues, who reside in the Western Conference, making me a Western Conference guy. So in an All-Star game scenario where it's West vs. East, I have a clear connection to the Western Conference side. Under the North American vs. The World setting, the delineation is much fuzzier, though still there, as I'm a North American. Under the Fantasy Draft system, all lines of distinction are taken away from a fan's perspective. So who does one root for?
You may ask, "Why not just root for the team with your team's players on it?" That's a good thought, after all, that's most of why one would root for one's conference, right? There's a lot of truth in that, but that line of thinking becomes problematic under any alternate ASG format, for they open up the possibility of your team being represented by both sides. Under the North America vs. The World setting that case didn't come up too often for Blues fans, as Chris Pronger and Al MacInnis were both consistent All-Stars for the NA team, while off the top of my head I believe Pavol Demitra was the only Blue to ever make the World team (if I'm wrong there, please let me know). Even the last two years it's been easy to chose sides that way with the Blues only having one selection both times (David Backes last year, Brian Elliott tonight). But what would I do if I were a Predators fan with Shea Weber and Ryan Suter split up? And although there isn't that problem for Blues fans this year, what if that team also included certain players I am sworn to root against, such as Patrick Kane? Rooting for him in the Olympics is one thing, because country trumps all else. Even under a West/East split, there's pride taken in being a Western Conference team, just like there would be for an SEC football team. Rooting for a team only because of the players makes the name on the back of the jersey more important than the front.
Which brings me back to the first point - by eliminating all lines of distinction from the two AS sides, the league has essentially wiped the front of the jersey blank, taking away any rooting interest any fan might have in the game. As a Blues fan, I take pride in our franchise, our history, and our team and would support it any way I could, and some - not all - of that 'never-walk-on-the-logo' spirit applies to the Western Conference as a whole. Sure, I may hate half of the other teams in the West, but I still take pride in the competition and superior hockey played throughout the conference, just as I do in baseball with the National League (The DH rule isn't real baseball, and every Eastern Conference NHL team that's not Boston or Philly are a bunch of pansies!). But without anything on the front of the jersey to root for, why should I care at all?
In another couple years or so, the novelty of the Fantasy Draft will wear off and unless the league wants to really roll the dice and take the ASG outside like the Winter Classic, we'll likely revert back to the West/East scenario, or something very similar (depending on how re-alignment goes). I applaud Gary Bettman, Brendan Shanahan, and the NHL for really thinking outside of the box to try and make the All-Star Game more fun for the fans, but this scenario essentially takes the fan out of the equation. Fans are supposed to cheer for one side to win, but that's pretty hard to do when you can't even chose a side.
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