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I demand a recount Last year's MVP vote still looks like a jokePosted: Friday January 31, 2003 10:16 AM
Somewhere in suburban Chicago sits a black pickup truck that was stolen from Nikolai Khabibulin. Eric Daze's name is on the title, but the form of thievery was an early voting deadline for the MVP award in last year's game in Los Angeles. The North American team was clinging to a 5-4 lead with five minutes left in the third period when the MVP ballots were collected. Considering that Daze had scored twice and assisted on another goal, he was a pretty logical choice for MVP. Except the game wasn't over. The World side rallied with an amazing four-goal flurry in the final 3:01. The flaws of an early deadline for MVP voting were revealed when Daze drove home with the Dodge Ram 1500 truck while Khabibulin was left wondering what else he had to do to impress the panel. Khabibulin stopped all 20 shots he faced in the final period, pitching a rare 20-minute All-Star Game shutout. "Me and a couple of other guys, we thought that Nicky was going to get the MVP," North America center Jeremy Roenick said. "I can't remember the last time a goaltender shut out a team in the All-Star Game, especially with the talent we have on this team and the opportunities we had." Daze finished fifth in our online poll of "Who should've won the All-Star Game MVP award?", so let's hope he peeled out of the Staples Center parking lot in his new rig and didn't look for Khabibulin, Markus Naslund, Teemu Selanne or Mario Lemieux chasing after him. "I was really surprised because we lost the game, but I'll take it," Daze said. Khabibulin offered no ill will, and even justified the choice of Daze as MVP. "Players are playing the whole game and goalies are only playing one period," Khabibulin said. "I think it's hard to even think about it." With a salary of $3,873,438.75 for this season, I imagine the Bulin Wall can go purchase a few trucks for himself if he really wants to, considering the MSRP for the 345 horsepower V-8 version is only $28,760. Maybe the award should be renamed the Most Valuable Player Through Fifty-Five Minutes Award. I guess the MVPTFFM award doesn't have quite the same ring to it, but it is more accurate. Wayne Gretzky ripped off four goals in the third period of the 1983 game, so what would've happened if they all would've come in the final five minutes? It's obvious that for television reasons they like to have the ballots counted early, but last year's blunder was a bit embarrassing for the league. And it still looks foolish a year later. One extreme to the otherThere is nothing like sunshine and palm trees to stir the soul into wanting a little hockey in early February. Don't forget your sunscreen and beach chair this year, but enjoy the rays while you can. Because next year hockey fans will be freezing their butts off over the All-Star break. After three warm-weather sites in five years, things get back to "normal" next year when the All-Star Game heads to the XCel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn. While South Florida may not be the hockey hotbed that Minnesota is, the forecast for Sunday in Sunrise, Fla., calls for partly cloudy skies and a temperature of 79 degrees, while in the wonderful Twin Cities, the mercury will be lucky to hit the freezing mark and a "wintry mix" of snow and rain is expected. Chalk up one vote for more All-Star Games in Florida. The North America against the World has been scrapped after five years, and it's back to the Eastern Conference vs. the Western Conference. However, purists may still long for the Campbell vs. Wales ways of 1993 and earlier. Beware the sore thumbsFor the officials selected to work the game it basically amounts to a free trip to Florida. They get to skate around the Office Depot Center ice for a few hours worth of exercise, point at the net when a goal is scored and stay the hell out of the way. Penalties are virtually non-existent and none of the players complain about calls. The goal judges, on the other hand, get a workout of a lifetime. And the red lights come on so often that they need to be replaced between periods. Sit back and enjoy the festival of offense, but don't forget your abacus so that you can count all of the goals. Worth notingNobody lets it flow in a wide-open hockey game like Super Mario, so his vision and passing will be sorely missed for the East. Lemieux could've broken a tie with Gretzky for a couple of All-Star records. Each has won three MVP awards, and they are tied with 13 goals. ... Al MacInnis was drafted eight months before Marian Gaborik was born (Feb. 14, 1982). ... The Hossa family will be well represented this weekend, with older brother Marian playing in the regular All-Star Game and younger brother Marcel of the Habs playing in the YoungStars Game. ... Ten countries (Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States) are represented among the 70 players who will participate in the All-Star Game and YoungStars Games. ... With the return to the East-West format, a quartet of linemates were named to the game. Boston's Joe Thornton and Glen Murray, Pittsburgh's Lemieux and Alexei Kovalev, Dallas' Mike Modano and Bill Guerin and Vancouver's Naslund and Todd Bertuzzi made up the four sets of linemates named to the game, though only three of them will play since Lemieux is out. ... Last time we checked, Ilya Kovalchuk still was making Dan Blackburn look silly. While Kovalchuk's offensive prowess was the highlight of last year's inaugural YoungStars Game, its legacy could be that it ruined Blackburn. Only 18 at the time, Blackburn's confidence has been in tatters even since and the Rangers are reluctant to use him. ... Last year's game featured some bona fide defense -- there was even a bodycheck by Jeremy Roenick on Alexei Zhitnik -- despite the 8-5 final score in favor of the World team. Even though the game ended with 13 combined goals, only eight pucks got past the netminders in the first 56:59 of the 2002 game. But then all hell broke loose with the World team scoring five times in the final 3:01 to pull away for the win. |
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