Montreal Canadiens’ John Scott will get to captain the Pacific Division team after all. In spite of the NHL’s attempt to keep him out.
By William Chase
Montreal Canadiens’ winger/defenseman John Scott will get to captain the Pacific Division team in the upcoming NHL All-Star game in Nashville Jan. 31. This despite being traded from the Arizona Coyotes, and in spite of the league’s attempt to foil his All-Star status, even though Scott garnered the necessary votes to make the game.
It’s the right call. And no, the NHL gets no credit for reversing their decision in letting Scott captain the squad.
This is what happens when a league puts the All-Star voting in the hands of the public. They let the fans decide, in an effort to appeal to the fan and to drum up interest for an exhibition game.
The fans are not going to vote the way the league might deem reasonable, and yet more power to the fans. It might be a mockery to have Scott in the All-Star game, let alone captaining his All-Star team, but who cares?
John Scott will play in the NHL All-Star Game after all. https://t.co/VjFEgRHZkW pic.twitter.com/dj1UhNcxln
— CBS Sports NHL (@CBSSportsNHL) January 19, 2016
Aside from the MLB All-Star game, and the ridiculousness aside of it deciding home-field advantage for the World Series, All-Star games are nothing more than a glorified exhibition game.
It means nothing!
No one remembers who wins or loses, and the NHL All-Star game, namely its previous iterations and formats, were nothing more than 10 men skating around, slamming through upwards of 20 or more combined goals.
The NHL has made it more interesting this season, doing away with the traditional 60-minute game, and instead replacing it with three 20-minute periods, of 3-on-3, or mini-games.
True, John Scott has no business being on the ice as an NHL All-Star, as far as real NHL talent goes. Still, he’s the fans’ pick and to dangle that carrot in front of the fans, and Scott in particular, only for the league to rip it away because the fans played the league’s game, and did it wrong, is ridiculous.
No one made nearly the amount of fuss when Buffalo Sabre forward Zemgus Girgensons (who?) was, not only elected to the game in Columbus last year, but received the most votes of anyone selected for the game.
The Latvian native played 61 games last season, scored 15 goals and had 15 assists.
That’s it.
At the time of the All-Star game last season, he was 168th across the entire league in points (22), and 61st in goals (13).
So why the abnormal level of support? Latvia loves their guy.
If someone is trying to validate the greatness of one’s career based on, of all things, amount of All-Star selections, stop. This little fiasco with the NHL voting shows just how arbitrary it all really is.
Sure, NHL players are being snubbed already, and this only adds to the absurdity when John Scott gets to lace them up with the leagues’ elite.
But again, this is not an issue. If it really was, the NHL would not let fans select the games’ participants. And if they really want to keep this from happening again, they could, oh I don’t know, let the fans pick from a specific pool of NHLers. Perhaps a certain criteria of players that must have at least played this many games, or scored that many goals.
Whether or not fans wanted to see Scott, a 6-foot-8 bruiser, who only has one, count’em one point on the season, and currently resides on the AHL St. John’s IceCaps humiliate himself in trying to keep up in a three-on-three mini game, let the fans have their cake.
Don’t feel bad for Scott if the intentions of him being in the game was to all but center him as the mockery of fan voting.
No one is forcing him to be there.
After all, if it was up to the NHL, he wouldn’t be there anyway.
