The 10 dumbest NHL moments of the 2010s

p>Over the next few days, writers across this site will be looking back at the last decade in sports. You’ll read about the best players, the greatest moments, and most memorable games, as well as in-depth breakdowns of the most important stories and their lasting impact on the sport.

I was not asked to write any of those posts.

No, like any well-run team, The Athletic makes sure to use everyone in the role they’re best suited for. And that means that I was asked to write about the NHL’s 10 dumbest moments from the last decade.

My answer: I’m going to have a tough time narrowing the list down.

To be clear, we’re looking for dumb moments that were, for the most part, ultimately harmless; we’ll save the serious stuff for another day. Maybe these moments made us laugh at the time. Or maybe we only laugh when we look back in hindsight. Or maybe we don’t laugh at all, instead slowly lowering our head onto our desk and then sobbing quietly over why we ever let ourselves become a fan of this ridiculous league in the first place. You do you, I’m not going to tell you how to live your life.

We’ll do this in chronological order, because trying to rank these moments would be like asking me to rank my own children, except that my children can occassionaly go a few straight weeks without embarrassing me.

June 9, 2010: When sudden death isn’t all that sudden

Imagine being a middle-aged Blackhawks fan in 2010. Your team hasn’t won a Stanley Cup since 1961, before you were even born. They’ve come close, but never sealed the deal. You’ve literally waited your entire life just to see them score a Cup-winning goal.

And then they finally come through and win it all and… you still don’t see them score a Cup-winning goal.

In terms of immortal goal calls, you’ve got “Henderson has scored for Canada”, “May Day!” and “What a goal, what a move, Lemieux, OH BABY”. For the Hawks’ first Cup-winner in almost half a century, we got “To the net… [awkward silence]… Leighton stopped it… Where’s the puck?” That one might need some work.

But in defense of Jim Hughson, I didn’t realize the puck was in either. You probably didn’t. Just about everyone in the building seemed to miss it, including the referee and the goal judge. Other than Patrick Kane and Michael Leighton, nobody seemed to realize that the Blackhawks had just won the Stanley Cup.

It was the NHL’s first big moment of the 2010s, and nobody saw it. In hindsight, maybe that should have been a sign of what was to come for the rest of the decade.

Nov. 15, 2010: Email etiquette

One of the ongoing stories from the start of the decade was a lawsuit between the league and former referee Dean Warren. It was a marginally interesting story, if kind of dry and largely stuck in the legal weeds, and most fans probably didn’t pay much attention.

But Tyler Dellow did. Long before he was employed as a stats guru by NHL teams (or as a contributor at The Athletic), Dellow was a fan with a legal background who took an interest in the Warren case – specifically, with some emails that had been included in court filings. Those emails, sent between league executive Colin Campbell and former head of NHL officiating Stephen Walkom, were redacted because they were sensitive in nature. Only, as Dellow discovered, they weren’t redacted very well.

And so we all learned that Campbell had sent at least one email ranting about a call against his son, Gregory, and that he thought Marc Savard was “a little fake artist”. That was embarrassing enough, but the fact that the revelation came just months after Campbell had declined to suspend Matt Cooke for essentially ending Savard’s career only made matter worse.

Somehow, this wasn’t even the decade’s only controversy involving Campbell’s emails. Say what you will about how things were done in the old days, but you never saw Original Six executives getting embroiled in email scandals.

Nov. 9, 2011: The Flyers stage a Lightning strike

By the start of the new decade, the NHL was still firmly mired in the Dead Puck Era of defense-first thinking. But with the post-lockout rules limiting clutch-and-grab tactics and the lack of a red line hindering the old school neutral zone trap, the next generation of coaching minds had to come up with new ways to stifle the game.

One of those minds was Guy Boucher, who took over in Tampa in 2010 and immediately guided the Lightning to an impressive 103-point season based partly on his 1-3-1 system: One player back, three players across the neutral zone and one lone “forechecker” passively guiding the attacking team towards the traffic jam. It was a tough system to beat. But on November 9, 2011, Peter Laviolette’s Flyers figured out what to do: Nothing.

Literally. The first time they had control in their own zone and the Lightning set up their 1-3-1, the Flyers did nothing. Thirty seconds into a nationally televised showcase game, Chris Pronger got the puck, and just… stood there.

Nobody knew what to do. Pronger clearly wasn’t going to make a move. Boucher’s system meant the Lightning were under strict orders not to directly attack the puck-carrier. And as long as somebody is controlling the puck, there’s nothing in the rulebook that says that any of the players in a hockey game actually have to, you know, play hockey. The stand-off lasted 30 seconds before the officials blew the play dead, only to resume again when the same sequence played out a few minutes later, and again several times during the period.

The Lightning eventually took home a low-scoring 2-1 win, as players and media around the league weighed in real-time. Gary Bettman didn’t like it, and the GMs discussed changing the rules before deciding to keep the status quo. And fans were left with the memory of a debacle that the Wall Street Journal would call “The Worst Hockey Game Ever”.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

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Grab bag: Slash and burn

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- The NHL is calling a million slashing penalties. Good.
- We must save the noble emergency backup goalie.
- An obscure player who somehow wound up starting on an all-time dream team.
- The week's three comedy stars.
- And a look back at once of the dumbest moments in preseason history. Phil Kessel is involved.

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports

Assembling the worst NHL all-star roster ever

The NHL all-star game is this weekend, and the rosters are… well, they’re fine. Maybe a few names that are mild surprises, sure, and there are probably too many Blackhawks, but there always are. Overall, the league did a reasonably good job of filling out the rosters this year.

That hasn’t always been the case.

To be clear, there’s really no such thing as a bad all-star. If you’re on the all-star team, you can’t be all that bad. Even if you really shouldn’t be there, you’re still a halfway-decent hockey player.

So no, the all-stars we’re going to talk about today aren’t bad. Let’s come up with a more polite term for them. They’re, uh, “differently qualified.”

That works. Today, let's go through some of the more questionable picks over the years and see if we can put together a full roster of the oddest all-star picks in NHL history.

To do that, let's figure out how non-all-star-type all-stars end up on the team in the first place. Usually, the picks fall into one of a handful of categories:

• The late replacement: Somebody else was supposed to go, they couldn't make it, and you were available.

• The one-per-team rule: Most years, the NHL insists on having each team represented by at least one player. When a team is really bad, that can lead to some interesting choices.

• The ballot-box stuffing: Somebody gets voted in by an enthusiastic fan base and/or a small Baltic country.

• The weird format: When it's the traditional conference-vs.-conference or the current division-vs.-division format, things tend to go OK. When the NHL tried to more creative, things got weird.

• The Crazy Mike Milbury: We'll get to it.

One important note: For this team, we're not counting commissioner picks. For a few years back in the ’90s, the commissioner could add a player or two to each roster after they were finalized. It was a way to recognize respected veterans whose careers were coming to a close, and it would feel wrong to pick on those guys. So that's why there's no Brad Marsh on our roster.

With that in mind, let's meet our team.

GOALTENDERS

John Garrett, 1983

Qualifications: The popular veteran (and current beloved broadcaster) had enjoyed a long career, first in the WHA and then in the NHL. But he wasn't exactly anyone's idea of an all-star, posting a career GAA north of 4.00, which wasn't great even in the offensive 1980s. When the Canucks acquired him in February, 1983, it was to serve as a backup to starter Richard Brodeur.

Category: The late replacement, with some one-per-team rule mixed in

Brodeur was supposed to be the Canucks' representative. That would have been an iffy pick in its own right, but somebody from Vancouver had to go and Brodeur was having a decent season. But he got hurt a few days before the game, meaning the league needed another Vancouver goalie to take his place. Garrett was the only option, even though he'd been a Canuck for less than a week and had only six wins on the year.

As a side note, Garrett played well in the game. In fact, legend has it that he had been voted MVP midway through the third. But then Wayne Gretzky scored four times, the vote was changed, and Garrett lost out on a free car.

Peter Sidorkiewicz, 1993

Qualifications: After a few years of steady work in Hartford, Sidorkiewicz wound up in Ottawa for the Senators' first season. Playing behind one of the worst teams in NHL history, he got shelled every night. When the all-star break rolled around, he had a record of 4-32-3 and a goals-against average of 4.40.

Category: One-per-team

Hey, somebody from Ottawa had to go. Most expected it be someone like Norm MacIver or Sylvain Turgeon. But instead it was Sidorkiewicz, a surprise pick that left bigger names like Ron Hextall and Tom Barrasso at home. Hey, think of it this way – who better to suit up in a game where nobody plays defence than a goalie for a terrible expansion team?

Craig Billington, 1993

Qualifications: He was midway through the only 20-win season of his career, and Martin Brodeur was still a year away from arriving as a full-time NHLer.

Category: No idea. This is the only pick on our roster where not one of the standard categories seem to apply.

It's fair to say that 1993 was a weird year for goalies, as Billington joins Sidorkiewicz on the Wales squad. Fun fact: A few months later, they'd be traded for each other.

Honourable mentions: Tim Cheveldae (1992), Manny Legace (2008), Rick DiPietro (2008)

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

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Podcast: Are the Maple Leafs actually good?

In this week's episode of Biscuits, the Vice Sports hockey podcast:
- The Maple Leafs might actually be good and Sean isn't handling it well
- A look back at the week's outdoor action, including all the alumni fun
- The Blue Jackets' unlikely winning streak
- The all-star votes are in, and nobody weird got picked this year
- And Dave and Sean talk about last night's USA/Canada gold medal game, which was tricky since the podcast was recorded before the game

>> Stream it now on Vice Sports

>> Or, subscribe on iTunes.

The five dumbest controversies of 2016

A few days ago, I was clicking through Wikipedia and stumbled on what may be my new favorite page on the site. Titled "List of National Hockey League controversies" and promising "a list of controversies which have occurred in the National Hockey League over its history,” at the time I found it the page listed a grand total of… three things.

Yeah, you know what Wikipedia, I'm going to go ahead and say this is not a complete and comprehensive list. pic.twitter.com/zZ3D1AYWvd

— Down Goes Brown (@DownGoesBrown) December 22, 2016

That seemed low.

Let's be honest — on a good night, the NHL will give us three new controversies before most of the game have hit intermission. And in 2016, as always, the NHL provided plenty of new entries to the ongoing list. Much of that was firmly in the no-laughing-matter category, as issues like the concussion lawsuit, Dennis Wideman's hit on Don Henderson and a steady stream of offside replay reviews had fans fuming. 

But other controversies of 2016 were just, well, dumb. They were the kind that had you shaking your head, rolling your eyes, and wondering "What are we even doing here?" Those are the kind of controversies that the league probably wishes would go away quickly, never to be mentioned again.

Well, the Wikipedia editors may forget, but I don't. So before we flip the calendars ahead to 2017, let's take one last look back at the five dumbest controversies of 2016.

5. Gerald Gallant and the cab

Coaching in the NHL isn't easy. You work countless hours, you're measured on results that are largely out of your control and you have to deal with the media at every turn. And, inevitably, you get fired.

That last part happened to a few coaches in 2016, most recently Gerald Gallant. He was canned by the Panthers just months after being a Jack Adams finalist, raising more than a few eyebrows around the league.

But the firing itself wasn't the controversy. The big story here was the Gallant ended up taking a cab.

Yes, apparently losing your job is just part of the game, but having to take a taxi to the airport is some sort of mortal insult. The Panthers' organization had already somehow become ground zero for every hockey hot take, but this was simply going too far. Those dastardly computer boys had probably outsourced their transportation policy to some new-fangled abacus!

Later, we found out the whole thing had just been a misunderstanding, with Gallant himself telling everyone to knock it off. But the damage had been done, the cab had been called and a horrified hockey world is still recovering.

>> Read the full post at The Hockey News

The ten biggest NHL stories of 2016

So that was … interesting.

One of the most common complaints about the modern NHL is that the league’s product is occasionally boring. And when it comes to the action on the ice, that’s often true. But in the bigger picture, 2016 couldn’t be accused of being dull. The year was a lot of things – ridiculous, controversial, head-scratching – but it was rarely boring.

Here are 10 of the biggest stories from an undeniably weird but entertaining year in the NHL.

1) The Penguins win it all

By the end of 2015, the Penguins were a mess. They’d just fired their coach, they were barely hanging in the playoff race, and they seemed more like a collection of aging, overpaid stars than an actual team.

By the end of 2016, they were the best team in hockey.

Nobody had a better 2016 than the Penguins, who close out the year near the top of the NHL standings and as defending Stanley Cup champions. They won that Cup thanks to a dominant performance by Sidney Crosby, now fully healthy and once again the undisputed best player in the world. He was supported by an unlikely hero in goal, as rookie Matt Murray took over the job despite having just 13 career starts heading into the playoffs.

And then there was Phil Kessel, the much-maligned winger who’d been acquired the previous summer. He went from league-wide punch line to the Penguins’ leading postseason scorer, not to mention one of the sport’s most lovable memes. By September, he was even throwing bombs on Twitter.

Phil Kessel is the best. In 2016, the Penguins were too.

2) The day the hockey world went nuts

June 29 seemed like it would be a relatively normal day in the NHL. The draft had just passed, and the start of unrestricted free agency was still two days away. The rumor mill was busy, as it always is this time of year, but nobody was expecting anything too crazy.

Then everyone lots their minds.

First came word that the Oilers had traded former first overall pick Taylor Hall to the Devils for defenseman Adam Larsson, in a move that stood as easily the most stunning one-for-one deal in recent NHL history. It held that honor for all of a half hour or so, before we learned that Montreal had sent PK Subban to the Predators for Shea Weber. You could hear hockey fans’ heads exploding around the world.

By the time reports emerged that Steven Stamkos had re-signed in Tampa, the day seemed almost incomprehensible. The Stamkos free agency auction was the biggest story in the league when the day began; by the time it ended, fans barely noticed.

In a league where nobody makes big moves anymore, we got three within an hour. It was madness. Here’s hoping it happens again someday soon.

>> Read the full post at The Guardian

New season's resolutions for 2016-17

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.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

The five biggest UFA signings of the salary cap era

Thursday marks the end of the first week of NHL free agency. It’s a nerve-racking time for players still looking for a home, since conventional wisdom says that if you don’t have a deal in place by the end of Week One, you’re pretty much out of luck. You could end up having to wait all summer, like Cody Franson did last year. You may not get a contract anywhere at all.

But the good news is that that’s not quite true, at least not all the time. A look back through the history books shows us that there have been a handful of major signings in the second week of free agency. It’s a small handful, to be sure, but you take your hope where you can get it.

Here are the five biggest names who found new homes in Week Two of unrestricted free agency during the salary cap era.

2006: Brendan Shanahan, Rangers

The signing: After nine years and three Stanley Cups in Detroit, Shanahan headed for New York with a one-year, $4 million deal on July 10, 2006.

How big was it? Fairly big. Shanahan’s departure came on the heels of Steve Yzerman’s retirement, putting an exclamation point on the fact that an era was ending in Detroit. And he was coming off of a 41-goal, 81-point season, so even at 37 years old he looked like a guy with some hockey left in him.

Did it work out? Pretty much. Shanahan put up 29 goals and 62 points, and provided the sort of leadership that quickly won over the Rangers faithful. He re-signed for another year in New York, scored 23 more goals, and then finished his career with a return to the Devils. All-in-all you’d have to call this signing a success, which it goes without saying was a flagrant violation of established Rangers team policy.

>> Read the full post at The Hockey News

Handing out some NHL awards

It’s been less than a week since the Penguins won the Stanley Cup, and we’re already well into the NHL offseason. Teams are making trades, there’s a new franchise on the way, and we’re only a few days away from the entry draft and free agency. This is just how hockey works – there’s virtually no downtime between the end of one season and the start of the next.

That’s why it’s important to occasionally take a few moments to reflect. So today, let’s look back on the just completed year in the NHL and hand out some awards. Not the real hardware – that part’s also on the schedule for next week. Instead, we’ll make up a few of our own, to recognize the best and worst of a season that already feels like it’s fading into the distant past.

Breakout star of the year: Brent Burns

The Sharks defenseman has been one of the league’s better blueliners for years now. But he posted career-best numbers this season, earning a nod as a Norris finalist and a spot on Team Canada in the process. And he did it all while being… well, being Brent Burns. Which as it turns out, is a pretty interesting thing to be.

Whether it was the crazy beard or the Don Cherry-esque wardrobe or the solid soundbites or the whole Chewbacca thing at the all-star game, Burns emerged as a fun personality in a league that doesn’t have many. He may have flown under the radar for too long, thanks to West Coast start times. But the Sharks run to the Cup final put him solidly in the spotlight, and he embraced it.

And the hockey world embraced him right back … at least for now. No doubt, it won’t be long until Burns gets the PK Subban/Alexander Ovechkin treatment and we all start complaining about him being too eccentric or enigmatic or whatever other word we come up with. But for now, we can enjoy the presence of a star player who actually seems to enjoy the role.

Best trade (for both teams): the Phil Kessel deal

On the first day of free agency during last year’s offseason, the Leafs sent their best player to the Penguins in exchange for a package of picks and prospects. The deal ended the disappointing Kessel era in Toronto, and it didn’t take long for the knives to come out. Many felt the Leafs hadn’t got enough in return for a legitimate offensive star, while others worried that the Penguins had just gone all-in on a sullen, me-first distraction.

Less than a year later, the Pens are Stanley Cup champions largely thanks to Kessel, who led the team in playoff scoring. Meanwhile, the Leafs bottomed out, won the draft lottery, and will pick Auston Matthews with the top choice in next weekend’s draft. In a league where GMs are constantly complaining that it’s too hard to make a trade, the Leafs and Penguins managed to pull one off that worked out just about perfectly for both sides.

Kessel says he’s going to spend his day with the Stanley Cup in Toronto, by the way. Fair warning: If he poses for a photo with it next to a hot dog cart, the Internet will explode.

>> Read the full post at The Guardian

Gab bag: Jaromir Jagr wants you to eat his cure for groin injuries

In this week's grab bag:
- Dennis Wideman, abuse of officials, and the NHL's joke of a concussion policy
- How the NHL league should run next year's all-star fan voting
- Comedy all-stars, including the definitive power ranking of the all-star breakaway contest
- An obscure Panther who once almost killed me
- And a YouTube breakdown of Jaromir Jagr admitting to doing something with his groin that you'll never be able to un-know

>> Read the full post at Vice.com

Beyond John Scott: A brief history of NHL enforcers turning out be more talented than we thought

Even as the regular season resumes, the hockey world is still buzzing over John Scott’s all-star weekend. Voted in by fans at least partly on the assumption that he’d be embarrassed by the 3-on-3 format, Scott instead scored a pair of nifty goals and earned MVP honors in a scene straight out of a movie script.

It all made for a great feel-good story. But maybe we shouldn’t have been quite so shocked. After all, Scott’s not the first NHL tough guy to step outside of his comfort zone and deliver an impressive performance. The enforcer role may be fading from the NHL, but the guys who’ve done the job over the years have a long history of being surprisingly multi-talented.

So for this week’s top five, let’s go beyond the All-Star Game and look at some other areas where NHL tough guys unexpectedly made their presence felt.

5. In a pro wrestling ring

The hockey world has seen plenty of cross-overs with pro wrestling; former Ranger Ted Irvine’s son did pretty well for himself in the ring, and Mean Gene Okerlund’s son once suited up for the Islanders. And who could forget about this guy?

But perhaps wisely, this generation of sports entertainers have tended to stay away from hockey’s tough guys. One notable exception: the time one WCW villain decided to go after a Chicago Blackhawks owner.

While it didn’t feature many punches, legend has it that that scripted battle was nearly preceded by the real deal. The lesson, as always: Bob Probert didn’t take any nonsense from anyone.

>> Read the full post at The Hockey News

Weekend report: All-star edition

Faceoff: All-Star Weekend

Well, that was... not terrible? It really wasn't terrible at all. Not even a little bit.

These days, that's what passes for a ringing endorsement of All-Star Weekend. After years of watching the event get progressively worse, with barely interested players floating through something that only vaguely resembled real hockey, expectations for the weekend could hardly have been lower. Anything better than "terrible" would have been considered a victory.

Instead, we got something that was—dare I say it—actually good. Like, legitimately entertaining. I know, I'm as stunned as you are. Sunday's win by the Pacific Division, which earned a 1-0 victory over the Atlantic in the final of the new format's mini-tournament, closed the curtain on a weekend that mostly worked.

With the NHL schedule on hold for the better part of a week, there's not much point in doing a new round of the regular weekly power rankings. So instead, let's borrow the format and apply it to All-Star Weekend, with a countdown of the five best and worst stories from the past few days in Nashville.

The good

The five highlights of NHL All-Star Weekend.

5. Gary Bettman: The commissioner typically spends All-Star Weekend making a variety of public appearances. By design, they rarely generate much in the way of news. But fresh off a recent extension, Bettman raised a few eyebrows late last week when he dropped this quote:

Bettman:

— Rick Westhead (@rwesthead) January 29, 2016

This is, of course, completely ridiculous. Bettman's last major appearance in front of NHL fans was the draft in Florida, at which he was booed. More recently, he appeared at the Glen Sather ceremony in Edmonton, where he was booed, and at the Sharks' 25th anniversary celebration, where he was booed.

I mean... this is a bit now, right? Bettman is winking at us, pretending to play along with the whole booing thing in an obviously fake and over-the-top way. The whole "the game is pretty good" quote—coming right in the midst an ongoing era of low-scoring, low-intensity hockey—is the giveaway. Bettman is messing with us.

The All-Star Game was a great success, despite Bettman's best efforts. —Photo by Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports

And, if so, here's hoping he really runs with it. The next time he's getting showered with boos at an NHL arena, he should make a big show of acting confused, making exaggerated "What's going on?" gestures while egging fans on. Maybe even grab a mic and ask everyone why they're chanting for this guy. Really steer into the skid.

I'm telling you, it will be gold. Gary Bettman, comedic genius. Who knew?

(Either that or he's going deaf. I'm really hoping it's the first option.)

4. Nashville: The All-Star Game doubles as an opportunity for the host city to show off a bit. If you're a longstanding hockey hotbed, that means breaking out the history. If you're what we'd politely refer to as "non-traditional market" that means a chance to show you belong in front of a hockey world that's probably looking at you at least a little bit skeptically.

Recent history has leaned heavily toward that latter group of hosts, with cities like Dallas, Raleigh and even Atlanta getting a turn in the spotlight. Last year was Columbus, and other than almost killing everyone in the press box with that ridiculous cannon, it did a fantastic job.

That brings us to this year, and by all accounts, Nashville hit it out of the park. The city has always been known as one of the league's underrated fun destinations, and it embraced that reputation throughout the week. The game was surrounded with a mix of everything, from the predictable (lots of events for kids) to the clichéd (a little too much country music) to the bizarre (the, um, cheese fountain). The fan fair sounds like it was a hit. Heck, there was even a great crowd for that awkward red carpet the league insists on doing.

Not everything worked—we'll get to that weird Friday night thing in a minute—but enough of it did that Nashville gets a solid thumbs up. And hockey fans got another reminder that you don't need 100 years of history in your back pocket to enjoy the game.

>> Read the full post at Vice.com

Grab Bag: John Scott, bigger rinks, the original holdout, classic weird all-stars and more

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- The one thing the NHL will probably do to make this John Scott all-star situation even worse than it already is
- The problem with making the NHL rinks bigger isn't what you think it is
- An obscure player who was also a coach, fighter pilot, and the league's original holdout
- The week's three comedy stars
- And a YouTube breakdown that reminds us that the all-star game has always featured a weird mix of superstars and... other guys.

>> Read the full post at Vice.com

Weekend report: The John Scott mess is an embarrassment that can't be fixed

Faceoff: No winners in the John Scott debacle

For years, I've argued that the NHL All-Star Game had morphed into a miserable, embarrassing fiasco that couldn't possibly get any worse. I'll give the league credit where it's due: it went out this year and proved me wrong.

On Friday, the Coyotes traded John Scott to the Canadiens, who immediately assigned him to their AHL squad. Sunday, he took the warmup before being listed as a healthy scratch. None of that would be unusual, except that Scott also happens to have recently been elected captain of the Pacific Division All-Star team. So to summarize: as of today, the captain of the Pacific Division entry for the NHL All-Star Game is neither in the Pacific Division nor the NHL. He is also, presumably, no longer an All-Star, although we'll get to that in a minute.

You know the backstory by now. This whole mess started off with a round of online ballot-box stuffing orchestrated by fans as a joke, one targeted largely at the league but that also took aim at Scott himself. There was an unmistakably mean-spirited edge to the fun for many, and that's hung over the story like a bad smell despite predictable attempts to reimagine the whole thing as some sort of feel-good story. The fact that the league left itself wide open to this sort of abuse by offering up a ridiculous fan-voting system didn't help matters.

After some initial reluctance, Scott eventually decided that he would honor the results and embrace his all-star status. You or I may not have made the same choice, but that's hardly important. Whatever the circumstances, Scott was voted in, and he had a right to handle it however he chose. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the player and his family, not to mention a chance at the $90,000 prize money awarded to players on the winning team—no small amount for a player earning the league minimum of $575,000. While nobody likes to be the butt of a joke, Scott seemed to have decided to make the best of it.

If only the NHL had done the same. While the NHL publicly acknowledged the vote as legitimate, it's now clear the league and Coyotes were working behind the scenes to convince Scott to stay home. Scott refused, and that's led to speculation that the NHL may have twisted a few arms to make Friday's trade happen.

Let's be clear: if the NHL actually got involved in orchestrating a trade to protect the All-Star Game and/or punish Scott for refusing to step aside, then we've got a scandal on our hands. The league has no place—none at all—in getting involved with facilitating transactions between teams, and if it turns out that someone at the league office was greasing the skids to make a Scott trade happen, people should lose their jobs.

>> Read the full post on Vice.com

Outrage of the week: John Scott, all-star captain

What is the hockey world pretending to be outraged about now?

Nothing makes hockey folks happier than being outraged about something relatively unimportant. We’ll pick one topic fans are complaining about this week and try to figure out if it’s justified.

The issue: After a campaign by fans, John Scott was elected Pacific Division captain for this year’s all-star game.

The outrage: Let’s all make a big show about rolling our eyes over anyone who suggests this isn’t utterly hilarious. After all, the all-star game has no integrity to begin with, and anyone who doesn’t want to see Scott play is just a cranky old fusspot who hates fun and loves hot takes.

Is it justified: Partially. True, the all-star game is a joke, and has been for years. The players don’t try, the game doesn’t look anything like real hockey, the scores are ridiculous and nobody cares. It’s quite possible that nobody has beat that drum more often than I have over the years, so sure, no argument there.

And so it should follow that if you’re going to open fan voting to anyone, the fans should be able to pick whoever they want. Stuff the ballot box for the home team, give the sentimental favorite one last trip, pick the guy with the funniest twitter campaign, you name it. It’s all in good fun, so fill your boots.

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Grab Bag: Preemptive Stamkos outrage edition

In this week's grab bag:
- The Steven Stamkos decision is going to be insufferable
- An Christmas-themed obscure player trips up a legend
- An unwritten rule for hockey announcers following a fight
- The week's three comedy star
- And the 1984 Flyers would like to read you a Christmas poem

>> Read the full post on ESPN.com

Grab bag: All-stars, punching, and all-stars punching

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- Thoughts on the John Scott all-star campaign
- What GMs like Tim Murray get wrong about trading
- A look back at the only fights in all-star game history
- Adding a new term to the hockey lexicon
- The week's three comedy stars
- And a YouTube breakdown of the days when a coach attacking a player didn't mean him names

>> Read the full post on ESPN.com

Grab bag: That time Gary Bettman made Wayne Gretzky a scrapbook

In this week's grab bag:
- Comedy stars
- All-star snubs
- A Selanne-inspired obscure player
- Stop telling me which scout are at which games
- And that time that Gary Bettman made the Canucks stand around and watch him give Wayne Gretzky a scrapbook.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

Phil Kessel's suspension hearing: The top secret transcript

Kessel spears Scott right in the creepy extra
leg that apparently hangs off of his hip.

(Scene: A boardroom in a downtown skyscraper. Brendan Shanahan sits at one end of a long table, preparing for the hearing. After shuffling a few papers, he's ready to begin.)

Shanahan: OK, first up we need to hear from the Maple Leafs. Send in Phil Kessel and Randy Carlyle.

(Phil Kessel walks into the room.)

Shanahan: Uh, where's Randy?

Kessel: Oh, he's on his way.

(Carlyle, sprawled out on top of a fainting couch, is carried into the room by several MLSE interns.)

Carlyle (with the back of his hand to his forehead): Fighting! Enforcers! Oh the humanity! However could an NHL team do such a thing!

Shanahan: Uh, Randy…

Carlyle: Won't somebody please think of the children!

Shanahan: Good try, Randy.

Carlyle: Not buying it, eh?

Shanahan: Not especially.

Carlyle (getting up from the fainting couch): Want to fight about it?

Shanahan: Maybe later. But first I want to talk to Phil. Phil, you're here because you slashed John Scott twice. It sure seemed like intent to injure. Let's start with the first slash, how can you justify that?

Kessel: Before the faceoff, John Scott told me he was going to attack me. He's much bigger than me and has far more experience fighting, so I felt that I needed to take action to protect myself. Whether it's on the ice or on the street, a person in imminent danger of being assaulted has a right to self-defence, and so I did what I had to do.

Shanahan: Hm. That's pretty convincing.

Kessel: Thanks.

Shanahan: And the second slash?

Kessel: Oh, I was just trying to break his ankle.

Shanahan: Ah.

Kessel: Seriously, screw that guy, am I right?

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