Sunday, January 27, 2008

HOCKEY: Much Ado About Less Than Nothing

Well, THAT was a letdown. Better the NHL play tapes of the Steve Stamkos/John Tavares Major Junior showdown than let six major NHL stars let the steam completely out of the All-Star Skills Competition finale.

It was awful, with only Alexander Ovechkin (my pre-comp prediction to win) and Ryan Getzlaf making much of a real effort to win the thing. Ovechkin wanted to do the Crosby elevate and swing maneuver, but that only after bookending his two attempts to do so with relatively run of the mill scoring moves. Getzlaf tried a skate pass move first and then admitted to having "run out of ideas." Given the two finalists were going to take four shots apiece, having ONE move might be seen as not giving a hoot about the event.

Pavel Datsyuk, the favourite in some eyes, simply skated in and made a deke and shot. Pitiful entertainment value. Ilya Kovalchuk was just as bad and should have been embarrassed to have former teammate Scott Mellanby boost his scores in as obvious a case of home-town scoring as is possible.

An obvious deterrent to the event's success was letting the goalies come out and poke check the attacker while he was setting up for something. In the future, if they do this again, goalies have to keep a foot in the crease. Nobody's going to shoot from 25 feet away. There's no need for them to be out cutting down the angles ... and the action.

And lastly, John Shannon and the poobahs at the NHL network division, continue to believe that having a camera follow a skater in on a shootout attempt is good TV. It's NOT, you morons. The best principal shot is from behind the goalie. The high centre shot is certainly adequate too. No matter the quality of the steadi-cam nor the abilities of the cameraman, the traveling shot is close to useless. New isn't better. It's just friggin' new.

So much for any goodwill.

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