The All-Star thrill is gone

Unlike some stars who have bowed out of Sunday's NHL All-Star Game, Sidney Crosby is actually injured. Gregory Shamus/Getty Images Related Links ROUNDTABLE: How to salvage the All-Star Game

When asked to RSVP to the NHL All-Star Game in Montreal, the Detroit Red Wings replied, "Non, merci."

With Nicklas Lidstrom and Pavel Datsyuk out of the game because of injuries -- more on that in a minute -- NHL hockey operations went to the Red Wings and asked for replacements from the second-place team in the Western Conference, specifically inquiring about defenseman Brian Rafalski and forward Marian Hossa. The short answer from the players was, "Sorry, too late."

As Red Wings general manager Ken Holland told SI.com, the players had made other plans with their families, booked hotels, purchased tickets for flights and were loathe to change them. Hossa, for example, had agreed to go to Toronto to film a commercial for a Slovakian cell phone company, and there were people from his homeland coming to oversee the project.

That was a swell excuse. Apparently no player told NHL Director of Hockey Operations Colin Campbell that he was too busy to go because he had to wash his hair this weekend.

Commissioner Gary Bettman has a policy that a player who skips the All- Star Game must have missed at least the game before the event or skip the game after, the equivalent of a third grade teacher demanding a note from the doctor. Now we will see if there are any teeth in the policy.

Lidstrom, who has had tendinitis in his elbow but looked disgustingly healthy scoring two goals against Phoenix this week, will be obliged to sit out a game Tuesday against Columbus. Datsyuk also will be scratched even though he missed the final 10 minutes or so of the last Detroit match. (True, 10 minutes do not constitute a whole game, unless you have been watching the Atlanta Thrashers on some nights.)

The policy, adopted a year ago to make sure no one blows off All-Star weekend, is well-intentioned, but as NHL Players Association director of player affairs Glenn Healy noted, in the long run the NHL only benefits by having players like Lidstrom play regular-season games.

So All-Star weekend merrily continues despite the lack of representatives from the Stanley Cup champions (other than coach Mike Babcock), even though the effect of the cancellations is to give the Red Wings a competitive advantage over their rivals, the San Jose Sharks. ("Not that a big deal," said Joe Thornton of the Sharks. "Personally, I don't like days off and I'm wearing new skates Saturday and Sunday, so this is a chance to break them in.") And the event can survive the absence of Sidney Crosby, who pulled out with a knee injury and sent an NHL representative scurrying to excise his name from all the promotional material.

"My son's not happy," said Keith Tkachuk of the St. Louis Blues. "He thought he was coming here for a sleepover with Sidney or something."

But the ambivalence shown by some Detroit players, if not the organization, merely reinforces the idea that the All-Star Game is a played-out notion.

There are annual suggestions of how to make the game better -- "It's Groundhog Day again," Toronto GM Brian Burke said -- but all the gimcracks that have been promised for the skills competition on Saturday just skim the surface. Despite a weekend that will be an overwhelming success simply because it is taking place in a hockey-obsessed host city -- the fans here know that the All-Star Game isn't a game but a swell party -- there is an All-Star fatigue that permeates not merely hockey but every sport.

The core of the problem: the very premise for all of these games has been subverted in recent years. The stars of the sport might not all convene at the same place on the same day during the season, but they can be juxtaposed, compared and contrasted on innumerable highlight shows and Internet clips. Because there is inter-conference play in all sports, these one-off exhibitions cannot even be regarded as some sort of measuring stick.

As the competitive value fades, leagues have turned these games into corporate festivals, splashy ways to sell the brand. The NHL announced $10 million in sponsorships for the 2009 Game. Unlike the attendance figures at the bottom of the stats sheets, the number appears to be legitimate.

The various leagues have begun to address All-Star fatigue, tweaking as they go. The NFL has addressed it by moving the Pro Bowl, its annual no-hitter, to the week prior to the Super Bowl, starting in 2010. Major League Baseball's All-Star Game has added the ridiculous idea of home-field advantage for the World Series for the winning league -- if you want to give a tangible benefit to the winner, the game shouldn't be played like an exhibition -- in order to make the event more relevant. The NBA game might as well be held in a playground, but then that league seems to like it that way.

Of course, the NHL can't emulate basketball because hockey, like football, can turn farcical without intensity. So, Groundhog Day starts again.

The NHLPA suggests an annual February break that can be filled by the Winter Olympics, a World Cup (in 2011) and, every third year or so, an All-Star Game. The idea probably is a non-starter, but it does have a touch of freshness. (I favor taking the All-Star Game to Europe every fourth or fifth year, but that one has no traction, either.)

So like a marriage that soldiers on long after the passion has faded, All-Star Games will continue as we know them. After the Olympic break for 2010, the NHL will be back in 2011, tentatively in Glendale, Arizona -- assuming Phoenix still has a franchise. We will admire the players' skill, and the new wrinkle or two that some bright minds can concoct, but the frisson of the All-Star Game, in this or any sport, belongs -- like the persimmon driver and the slide rule -- to the past.