The NHL tried sprucing up the skills competition to make it more entertaining. Did it work? (Source: Reuters)

I don’t enjoy bashing the NHL game because first and foremost I consider myself a fan but there are only so many mulligans that you can allow one of your buddies to have in a round of golf before you just throw up your hands and tell him to just admit that he’s putting on a crap performance and no number of freebies will change that fact. I sat down to watch the NHL’s annual skills competition with the same open mind I always hold about the event: I don’t take it seriously; all I ever expect is just to be entertained.

With that being said no number of mulligans would have fixed this 3-hour debacle. As many missteps as there were, there were a few highlights; despite the fact the many of them were unintentional.

Technical Difficulties

Where to start?

There was Elliotte Freidman’s inappropriate asking of Carolina Hurricanes’ GM Jim Rutherford about his interest in the Toronto Maple Leafs’ GM position (wrong place, wrong time for that type of question). This was topped by Friedman’s cringe-inducing awkward interview with Kris Letang.

I ‘giggled’ at Ron Maclean’s inability to hear Jason Spezza miq’d up.

The “mechanical failure” of the timing system ruined the fastest skater competition and left me more confused than Saw IV when Brian Campbell somehow made it to the final despite looking like the slowest skater.

The dizzying Cloverfield-esque experimentation of the skating cameraman needs to end at the experiment stage. And is there anyway we can turn off HD when Scott Oake’s hair is on camera?

Father’s Day - Chris Pronger inexplicably being taped hanging around dozens of kids sitting at the Western Conference bench throughout the skills competition was a sight to behold. It seemed like we were led to believe that these were all of Chris Pronger’s kids. I know the rumours about Pronger knocking up a sports reporter in Edmonton were unsubstantiated and false but seeing him with all these kids certainly brings up jokes like “Geez, how many female hockey reporters are there around the league?” I don’t know if it was done intentionally but he certainly was made to look like the Travis Henry of the NHL.

Getzlaf Mania - What was with all the coverage of Ryan Getzlaf? There’s literally a who’s’ who list of NHL all-stars and for some reason CBC was shoving the Ryan Getzlaf coverage down our throats. They had one-on-one an interview with him, and a couple of mentions of him prior to the ceremonies. We get it, he’s a great young player who shined at last year’s Stanely Cup playoffs, but enough’s enough. Was he CBC’s Plan B for media coverage when Sidney Crosby was forced to miss the game? I think the most shocking thing about the 23-yr old Getzlaf was his appearance sans-helmet. Too bad Jose Theodore wasn’t at the game; he could have shared a few hair care tips.

No Show, No Controversy - In hindsight it was probably a good thing that Dany Heatley’s shoulder separation injury forced him to miss the All-Star game. He would have been booed mercifully throughout the weekend and it wouldn’t have been one of those good nature jeers that a division rival like Vincent Lecavalier received. The distain that some Thrashers’ fans hold for Heatley comes from a very different and emotional place stemming from the Dan Snyder tragedy. A lot of Atlanta folks felt gutted that Heatley demanded a trade out of town after the city embraced him and welcomed his return. This is the same community that had to experience the tragedy only to then see the repentance work of Heatley (court-ordered public speaking sessions to youngsters) performed in Ottawa – a city that held no association to the tragedy. The injury definitely saved the NHL from a bit of a sensitive issue.

Slam Dunk Rejection - It was hyped as the NHL’s version of the slam dunk contest but in reality it was one of those ideas that should have been left on paper rather than executed. I suppose there was no harm in trying it out – that is unless you were one of the unfortunate souls who had to sit through the telecast waiting for the hyped final event only to see the guys swing and miss worse than some of the guys from “Keys to the VIP”.

If you missed the telecast of the event, there were two camps of players, those who executed their regular shootout moves and those who invoked the spirit of the competition and went for originality, unfortunately with bad results.  

If you’ve ever been to a practice or game day skate you’ll know that often players will have a shootout competition or simply display acts of stick wizardry that often don’t see the light of day during an actual game because a) they’re considered hot dog moves and, b) they’ll earn a player the wrath of their coach for trying such a risky move in a game situation.

So it was a bit surprising that the talented likes of Marian Gaborik, Pavol Datsyuk, Martin St. Louis, Ilya Kovalchuk, Alex Ovechkin and the aforementioned Ryan Getzlaf were unable to dazzle any of us with a significant TSN & ESPN highlight reel moment that the competition was begging for. Some of the players looked tighter than Nely Galan’s face.

As an aside, I loved Marian Gaborik’s imagination on one of his attempts where he skated in on Rick DiPietro at full speed only to slam on his brakes and “snow” DiPietro before taking the puck around the net to try a wraparound. Brilliant imagination! I’m not sure if it would have counted but I love the try.

Without a single defining moment from this much-hyped event I have to think that this was not only the inaugural event but maybe also the last time we’ll see this concept at work, unless they opt to play the competition without goalies so we can actually see some goals next time.