It’s almost that time of year again.
With the World Cup of Hockey done and the exhibition schedule wrapping up, we’re now just over a week away from opening night of the NHL’s regular season.
It’s a great time to be a fan. The real games are almost here, but today everyone is still tied for first, and there’s a sense of hope lingering over just about every team. Everyone’s best-case scenario is still on the table.
Of course, that won’t last — one bad shift in the first period of the first game will have you screaming at your TV and wondering why you ever bothered getting your hopes up.
But we're not quite there yet. This is still the time of year when anything is possible.
Since this is the start of a new year on the hockey calendar, let's take a moment to make some new year's resolutions. After all, none of us are perfect, and every fan has room for some self-improvement.
We could all come up with an idea or two of our own, but if you'd like a few suggestions, I'm here to help.
Here are a half-dozen New Season's Resolutions that it wouldn't hurt some fans to make.
Let's not rig the all-star game vote this year
Hey, remember the whole John Scott thing? That was fun, wasn't it?
You may not have thought it was especially funny at first – the NHL sure didn't – but you have to admit that it all worked out pretty well in the end. Seeing Scott win all-star MVP honors and get carried off the ice by his teammates was a moment worthy of Hollywood. It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime things.
It was great. So let's not try to do it all over again this year.
Oh, it will be tempting. There was a long history of all-star vote rigging that led up to Scott; remember Vote For Rory in 2007, or when a small Baltic nation took over the vote in 2014 or whatever the heck it was that led to this happening?
We've been down this road before, and there's going to be an urge to do it again. Somebody out there is probably setting up a wacky Twitter account right now.
But let's not. Scott was too perfect. It was the walk-off home run of ballot-box stuffing. Trying to recreate it would just be lame.
Hopefully the NHL will remove the temptation by coming up with a way to avoid the problem in the first place. But this is a league that occasionally doesn't get around to things in time, so we can't count on them.
Instead, let's just all agree that we had our laugh, and the joke is over.
Rory was funny. Scott was perfect. The concept has run its course. Let it rest.
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