I’m taking a big risk here, but bear with me.

Today, the All-Star weekend wrapped up with the All-Star Game. I don’t need to tell you that the Eastern Conference beat the Western Conference by a score of 12 to 11. As I sat there watching the game with friends and truly enjoying the experience of watching the best players in the game today having fun, I began to reflect on a few things.

My reflections were, admittedly, brought on by the appearance of Brian Burke during one throw interview. He remarked how criticisms of the All-Star weekend came around each year “like Groundhog Day” and how the experience was about fun. He also agreed with Gary Bettman’s decision to have Detroit Red Wings forward Pavel Datsyuk and defenceman Nicklas Lidstrom sit out a game for not attending the weekend.

I’ll touch upon Bettman’s decision in a second, but something about Burke’s remarks really made me think. Criticism of the All-Star weekend really does come around every year like clockwork. So does criticism of the Olympics and essentially any similar event. There is a sentiment out there that these players should be concentrating fully on their NHL teams and preparing for the playoffs.

This sentiment was echoed by CBC announcer Ron MacLean during his traditional cornering of NHL Commish Gary Bettman during the second intermission of the All-Star game. MacLean voiced a classic “what if?” scenario, asking Bettman what would happen if the single game missed by the Red Wings players sitting out for missing the All-Star celebration wound up costing Detroit a playoff spot.

Not only was MacLean’s scenario incredibly unrealistic and silly, but the announcer kept deflecting what truly was Bettman’s insurmountable logic (much as it pains me to say that Bettman has “logic” of any kind). Detroit GM Ken Holland and his two players argue that injuries were really the preventing factors to attending the All-Star weekend. One problem: Sidney Crosby. He was there, injured, and on camera enjoying himself.

The inference backed by MacLean was that anybody could sit out the All-Star weekend with a momentary “injury” and not face consequences. Bettman, supported by Brian Burke, essentially stated what I thought was obvious: the All-Star weekend is a league event and a celebration of the game. To not attend the event looks bad and reflects poorly on the league. The players knew of the consequences and chose to not attend the event.

What kind of precedent would it set should players be allowed to sit out the All-Star weekend for “injuries?”

It seems to me that this is really about the collision of two different viewpoints on the game of hockey. On one hand is the viewpoint that the league needs to promote its players and have an active relationship between the players and the fans. While there are always a few holdouts and whiners, hockey fans do generally enjoy All-Star weekend an they do like seeing a different sort of action on the ice. Coaches like the break and most of the players enjoy spending time with each other in such a capacity. Ask Alex Ovechkin, for instance.

On the other hand is the old school viewpoint that hockey is a sport to be taken seriously and that these players need to be focused 100% on winning the Stanley Cup and on team success. All-Star weekend festivities and other events take away from that focus, thus distracting from the purity of the game.

Could the All-Star weekend be better? Sure. But other major sports also have All-Star games and rarely is there so much damn complaining about it than with the National Hockey League, the media around the NHL, and the fans of the game. Are hockey fans the whiniest fans in all of sport? Maybe. And perhaps that’s another issue for another day.

As I reflected on Burke’s comments and MacLean’s Annual Bettman Inquisition, the third period of the All-Star game began. Roberto Luongo was communicating with the announce team and discussing how things were going in Vancouver. And it was entertaining. Luongo seemed like a person, not just a guy in a mask and gear, and his natural personality shone through. It was fun. And Luongo, too, was having fun.

Now that we’re entering the stretch and preparing for the excitement of the playoffs, the game of hockey will really begin to take off. I just hope that we don’t forget that, while our game is a game of speed and passion and guts and glory, it also has the capacity to be incredibly fun.

(Just as an add-on, thanks to the city of Montreal for one hell of an event and for showing the rest of us how it’s done!)

Posted by Jordan Richardson.