All-Star Game not a bad alternative to vacation

ATLANTA -– For the vast majority of NHL players, the best part of the All-Star break is getting some time off.

It's their consolation prize for not being picked to play in the game, a few days of much appreciated R&R in the midst of a long, grueling season. Yet for those who are involved in the 56th NHL All-Star Game, being here is hardly what anyone would term cruel and unusual punishment.

Vincent Lecavalier will try to make up for the absence of some other stars. (Getty Images)

"It's not going to be grueling physically," said Detroit Red Wings coach Mike Babcock, who will be behind the Western Conference bench that will have three of his own players on it. "If you do it right, I think you can make this a lot of fun with your family and enjoy the experience and join the other people and get energized with it as well. Maybe it wasn't the ski trip or the time at the beach you had planned, but I think it's a good opportunity."

Actually it's one big party, centered only nominally around a game that is supposed to be a showcase for the sport and its top players, but usually ends up being a passionless spectacle that bears little resemblance to what hockey can be at its best. In fact the game is really just one of a series of the hockey "events" that include a skills competition and an exhibition of up-and-coming young talent, all designed by the NHL to help promote the sport and to bring it a little closer to its corporate sponsors and fans.

But it wasn't always that way. The NHL All-Star Game was created initially as a benevolent endeavor, with the first game being played in 1934 to raise money for a Toronto Maple Leafs player named Ace Bailey, whose career was cut short a few months earlier because of head injuries he suffered during a game.

NHL "stars" played two more exhibition games in the 1930s to benefit families of Montreal players Howie Morenz and Babe Siebert, who both died prematurely, but the true foundation of the modern-day event took place in 1947 when the Stanley Cup champions from the previous season played the best of the rest in a preseason contest.

That format lasted four years, and it was taken seriously enough by players that the legendary Gordie Howe even got into a couple of fights.

"There was a lot more intensity then," Howe once said, recalling the fights he had in 1948 with Gus Mortson and in 1951 with Maurice Richard. "You hated those bastards."

No longer, as much because the stakes are too high for players these days to risk doing something that could get them hurt as because of the frequent makeovers in the game itself.

In the early 1950s, for example, the NHL tried a hybrid Canadian-American team format that lasted only two years before reverting back to having the Stanley Cup champs face the All-Stars. In 1967, the game was moved to midseason, and two years later, when the NHL doubled in size to 12 teams, the All-Star Game featured the Eastern Conference against the West.

More growth in the mid-'70s led the NHL to rename its conferences Campbell and Wales, and teams from both played each other for the next 20 years, except for 1979 and 1987, when special exhibition games against Soviet teams replaced the All-Star contest.

The NHL returned to East vs. West play in 1994, and in 1998 -- to set the tone for the upcoming Winter Olympics -- it created a new format pitting North Americans against players from the rest of the world. A year after the Salt Lake games, it was back to Eastern and Western Conference matchups, which is the way it will be Sunday when Atlanta gets the game it was supposed to host back in 2005 when the season was cancelled by the lockout.

Unfortunately some of the NHL's brightest stars like Sidney Crosby, Dany Heatley and Henrik Zetterberg won't be there because of injuries, and neither will stalwart goalies Martin Brodeur and Roberto Luongo who both begged off for personal reasons. But with much of the new generation of talents like Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin and Rick Nash in tow, along with stalwarts like Vincent Lecavalier, Jarome Iginla, Daniel Alfredsson and the Thrashers' two most dynamic players -- Ilya Kovalchuk and Marian Hossa -- there will be no shortage of free wheeling fan-friendly action.

That means lots of offense, little defense, and certainly no hitting. Kind of like watching kids play pickup somewhere without having to worry about silly things like the rules. Best team wins, more often than not, if they manage to get away the last shot.

If someone like Mike Richards of Philadelphia or Anaheim's Ryan Getzlaf shine in their debut All-Star Game the way Vincent Damphousse did in his with four goals in the 1991 game, great. If there is the kind of drama Bruins defenseman Ray Bourque produced when he scored the 1996 winning goal in Boston with 37 seconds remaining in the third period, even better.

And if not, who cares? "This isn't supposed to be like a playoff atmosphere, it's just supposed to be a chance for everybody to enjoy themselves," Getzlaf said. "And that's good for the game."