=DOWN SIDES — Darren Paterson, Sports Editor All-Star Losers So here I am again, trying to figure out what’s worse: the fact that I literally have a monkey wrench up my butt, or the fact that ’'m sort of enjoying it. But I think that Pve come to the general conclusion that neither of those things is good, and I have therefore decided to get my mind off the subject for a while by taking a moment to reflect on the down side of sports. This week’s issue: star players and their inability to step up for the fans. ’m talking all-star games here. The one game of the year when star players can either give a little something back to the fans who pay their salary, or show those same fans just how little they appreciate our involvement in their livelihood. And it seems like the players just don’t care. This is true especially in the NBA and NHL, where players routinely turn down the chance to play in an all-star game so that they can take a weekend to rest. But is an all-star weekend really so tiresome that the players can’t handle it? What is it about goofing off, posing for pictures, and playing a game of pick-up that tires someone out? For me, that 7s a weekend of rest. But instead the players opt not to play and we, as fans, end up watching the young up-and-comers who, while excited and enthusiastic about playing their first all-star game, are not yet ready to be called all-stars. Yet I will admit that a large number of true stars do come to play, and players like Ray Bourque, who remember how much of an honour it is to be selected to an all-star roster, do show up year after year. But once they get there, how many players put in their best efforts to enter- tain? In the NBA it seems like hardly any- body cares about the Slam-Dunk Contest anymore. I remember a time when Jordan came into the all-star weekend as the reigning champ, a time when the only thing that fans cared to see was what he would bring to defend his title. But now, players are winning the contest once and then giving up. That’s the college equiva- lent of acing a course and then quitting school. It’s ridiculous that Vince Carter and Kobe Bryant, players who always have a standing invitation to join the dunk contest, turn down the chance to throw down every year. But we are instead subjected to rookies who miss half their dunks due to nerves, causing the once-great allure of the Slam Dunk Contest to die a painful death. However, as it would be remiss of me to criticize these two leagues without offering up some sort of solution to my woes, here’s what I propose: the NHL and NBA should both move their all-star games to some time after the playoffs. If players have nothing to rest up for then they'll have no good excuse not to play. This would also alleviate the scheduling problems that the NHL has had with the Olympics (although canceling the season kills scheduling problems too) leaving that league with no excuses when it comes to releasing players for their national teams. But it seems that both of those leagues, and their players, are perfectly happy with the way things are now and so it seems very unlikely that things will change any time soon. So, like that dis- gruntled plumber did to me, the players will continue to give fans the shaft come all-star week, and that represents, to me, the down side of sports. It's Finally Done Thank God it’s over. I don’t know about you, but I was getting pretty damned tired of watching ten-minute round-table dis- cussions about a one-sentence quote from Jeremy Roenick, saying how he doesn’t like Gary Bettman. Therefore, I have a very strong appreciation for Bettman’s canceling of the NHL season. However, while I won’t miss the whin- ing banter between the NHL and NHLPA, and while I won’t miss the pointless roundtable discussions, while I won't miss the chance for a shortened NHL season, there are some things that I will miss. Things like Yzerman, Chelios, Stevens, and Hull. Things like Forsberg, Naslund, Bertuzzi, and Messiet...well, maybe not Messier. But what I’m trying to get at here is that the NHL, when it starts up again, is not going to look anything at 22 | www.theotherpress.ca Lockout Corner (}) ©=Darren Paterson, Sports Editor all like how you remember it. There are so many great players who may never play again that it’s staggering. Firstly, there are the players that were already on the verge of retirement, players like Steve Yzerman (39), Chris Chelios (42), Scott Stevens (40), Brett Hull (40), or even the recently crowned champion Dave Andreychuk (41). MacInnis, Francis, Nieuwendyk, Roberts, Larionov, Thomas, the list goes on and on. These are the leg- endary players that we once had the joy of watching and who we may never see again. But they are not the only stars of the NHL that are likely to wink out this year. We may also never again see the likes of Peter Forsberg, Markus Naslund, or Todd Bertuzzi, who are arguably the NHL’s three biggest superstars of the last two years. Forsberg and Naslund are both fin- ishing this year in Sweden playing for their hometown-team Modo, of the Swedish Elite League, and both have hinted at the possibility of moving back to Sweden on a more permanent basis. It’s also com- monly known that where Naslund goes, so goes Bertuzzi, while the Canucks may also be hit by the loss of Morrison who may join his line-mates overseas. Another thing that I'll miss is the opportunity to see the up-and-coming superstars play. Players like World Junior standout Jeff Carter. We may also have to wait another whole season before we see Sidney Crosby in the NHL as no one has a clue how the cancellation of the season will affect the NHL draft. But the league clearly can’t use last season’s stats to pick the draft winner, as that would allow teams like Washington to draft two super- stars in a row, and they can’t just pick a team at random to win the Crosby sweep- stakes. So it seems very likely that this year’s draft will be forgone and the eligible players, like Crosby, will be bumped back a year into what will likely be the deepest draft in NHL history. A situation that I would very much like to see. But whatever happens with the draft, it will be a precedent-setting event. Just like the precedent that was set when the NHL became the first of the four major North American sports to cancel an entire sea- son, thereby causing the Stanley Cup to remain unrewarded for the first time since the Spanish Flu canceled the 1919 play- offs. And just like the precedent that will be set by the number of NHL superstars that we will lose to this one disagreement. For a complete list of the NHL’s aging talents, check out our website at www.theotherpress.ca FEBRUARY 23/2005