All-Star Red Carpet Review

We are sure you’re wondering what our take on the red carpet footage before yesterday’s SuperSkills festivities was. Well, after considerable TiVo delay, we’ve decided to zap through the presentation from NHL Network, and we’re happy to share our purely fangirl-riffic take on the be-suited players in all their All-Star finery.

– Okay, we were only going to do a cursory run through the show and just comment on what the players look like to us, but we are immediately sidetracked when Stormy the Ice Hog (or whatever he is), the Carolina mascot, starts hamming it up for the camera. He is mangy. The edges of his snout are worn off and peeling. And when we pause on a shot of him, we are horrified to discover his nostrils look distinctly like eyeholes.

– We have no interest in what anyone has to say. We are literally in this just for cleaned-up, well-dressed hockey players. And mascots. There’s Stinger behind Dave Strader!

– Yayson Spezza: looks like a million bucks. Of course, he’s 33% of the hott the All-Star weekend has to offer, so what else would we say? We’re glad to see that 33% was giving 110%. And what was up with the interviewer asking Yayson who is tailor is? Dolce and Gabbana are like, “Tailor???” (The patent-leather, pointy witch shoes are a bit much, but we overlook that.)

– HAHAHA! Poor wretched, bedraggled Stormy gets stuck in a monkey-in-the-middle situation between two jugglers.

– Tim Thomas: We are stunned into silence. We also really can’t put our fingers on what he looks like. Pookie thinks the eagle pendant on his toolish beaded necklace looks Nazi-ish, Boomer thinks he looks like Brian Dennehey in the frame we paused the TiVo on, and we are all in agreement that he looks like he whined his way onto the All-Star team. After several moments Boomer recants, “That’s probably not fair, by the way. Brian Dennehey is better looking than that.” Whatever. We don’t like him. Nor do we care who is tailor is.

– Soupy: Kicks things off by picking his nose with a Sharpie. Pookie: “He does not look like he deliberately went tieless, he just looks like he forgot his tie.” Pause. “Or that he’s wearing it like a belt.” It is an indisputable fact that Soupy has the worst hair in hockey. He ends the interview by chewing on his pen, or as Pookie says, “Like he’s eating the boogers off of it.”

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All-Star Saturday SuperSkills

Well, here it is, perhaps the most challenging hockey engagement of the year to try to diarize – that’s right: All-Star Saturday! We’re staring down the barrel of the Young Stars game and the SuperSkills, two events that could be completely awesome, but are seriously undermined by the fact that there is a dearth of hot players on this year’s All-Star rosters. Oh, right, did we mention that when it comes to the SuperSkills we make like the event itself and toss all actual sense of “hockey” out the door? Yeah, we’ll be unabashed fangirls for this evening, and it should be stated for the record, we’re depressed fangirls because the pickings are slim. Thanks, ugly NHLers, for being the All-Stars this year.

– Our intro is uninspiring. Ovechkin? Lecavalier? Chara? Iginla? Nash? Lidstrom? These guys are not hott! (Pookie insists that Nash is highlighted as a player on the EC team, “because I refuse to believe that Columbus is in the west.”)

– Doc and Eddie lead things off by talking about their favorite events. Doc says fastest skater, and Eddie says “the target shooting”. We are in agreement that accuracy shooting is the sexiest event (Pookie: “You heard it here first.”) and hardest shot is the least sexy.

– We go to Chris in the dressing room with Lidstrom. Pookie, keeping a running tally: “Not hot. Oh! Getzi!” Getzi is, indeed visible in the background, pulling on his sweater and rocking his rapidly-expanding bald spot. We are strangely very attracted to the bald spot. VS then kicks us to the EC dressing room where we are interviewing the decidedly not-hot Ovechkin. However, the Getzi Of The East, Jason “Yayson” Spezza, is in the background in his stupid crushed-velvet camo underarmour shirt, looking flummoxed by the arrangement of the equipment in his stall. Okay, so that’s a look at two of the three IPB Official All-Star Hotties (Clarkson being the third). Has VS blown its wad here, or is this a sign of things to come?

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All-Star Saturday Open Thread

Gentle Reader, welcome aboard IPB’s All Star Saturday Open Thread! We’re gearing up for a fantastic night of All Star super skills — okay, a diverting night of super skills — okay, a passable night of super skills — okay, seriously, there’s nothing else on TV tonight and at least the super skills happens in a hockey rink, right? We’ll have a game diary (updated every few commercial breaks, perhaps; we’re not sure just yet how it will play out) and an open thread during the event. Of course we’ll be watching on… drum roll please… VERSUS!

We really, really, really want that magnet board. At this point, nothing else will make us happy.

This morning and afternoon, though, we thought we’d revisit something we did before the final game of last season’s playoffs. We invited readers to introduce themselves so we could all get to know one another a little better. We’ve had quite a few new Irregulars come on board since then, and we have reason to believe there are a few of you Gentle Readers lurking off to the side. If you feel so moved, we have a few ice-breaker questions we invite you to answer in the comments. We encourage anyone and everyone to jump in!

1. What is your name?

2. Who’s your favorite team?

3. Where are you from or where are you now?

4. What is your favorite All-Star moment?

5. Who is your favorite Devil and why?

Bonus Question 1: Jay Pandolfo — Great player? Or greatest player?

Bonus Question 2: If Boxworthy is walking from NJ to Atlanta at a rate of speed of .006 kilometers per hour, and Mrs. Pancake is walking from Atlanta to NJ at a rate of speed of 1/4500th of a mile per minute, exactly how hot is David Clarkson?

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IPB Programming Alert: VERSUS All-Star Weekend Edition

Attention Gentle Reader! We are excited to swagfully announce that we are planning a blowout weekend of diarizing all the All-Star programming Versus and NHL Network have to offer. Be here or be square! Please help us in our quest to get a Versus playoff tracker magnet board by being here for our open threads all weekend. What’s in it for you, you ask? A sense of community! Sparkling conversation! The vicarious joy of knowing how dearly we will love that magnet board!

(Note: Pookie is working on Saturday, so anything that gets broadcast before 6 p.m. Eastern on Saturday will be witnessed by us on TiVo delay. Not that that affects the Versus programming, but we have no idea what the NHL Network has in store. They’re not offering swag, so we can’t be bothered to find out what their lineup looks like.)

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The Last Word On The All-Star Starting Lineups

The All Star Game starting line-ups have been announced and as usual we’re incensed at who’s been deemed an “all star” and who’s been deemed “less than”. We look at the guys who were “voted in” by the “fans” and have a hard time trying to figure out which league these so-called “fans” have been watching, because it’s clearly not the same one we are. Let’s take a look at the starters, position-by-position, and see how the “winners” match up to the guys we think are the real all-stars.

EASTERN CONFERENCE

Forward
Our pick: Dainius Zubrus

Zubrus was brought in to fill some mighty big shoes following the departure of Scott Gomez and his 60 points, and he brought with him a whopping cap hit of $3.4 million, a staggering sum that could have handcuffed most teams. But did he buckle under the pressure of being the Devils’ new go-to guy? No way! Zubie’s going into the break sporting some pretty hefty point totals: 7g 14a (21p). Dude, if he was a defenseman, he’d be kicking ass! And defense is just about the only position he hasn’t played this season (oh, and goaltender, too. But point us to the skater who has…); Zubrus has been like a 6’5″ Sergei Brylin, making him the biggest interchangeable part we’ve ever seen. So while he might be 151 slots out of first in the Art Ross race, he’s totally played in every position on every line for the Devils. And not just because Coach Sutter had a hard time finding a place where Zubrus would be effective. So that’s why Zubrus gets our pick to be the starting All-Star center — he plays anywhere and everywhere the Devils ask him to, showing a hell of a lot more utility than Gomez ever did, and Gomez was an All-Star, wasn’t he?

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