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If you run the words “All-Star Game” through the Wikipedia search engine, here is the how the second paragraph starts:
All-Star games are organized like regular games, but are often played with less emphasis on victory. Competing goals are to give many players time in the game and to avoid injury. In hockey, for example, there is no serious checking, while in football no blitzing is allowed. In basketball, there is virtually no defense played until the final quarter.
Wikipedia is not a blog or a column, it is a virtual encyclopedia, and therefore, unbiased.
The breakdown listed above is not a ringing endorsement of what is supposed to be a showcase of a respective leagues best players. Though, sadly, it is true.
There is only one thing that is sadder than the typical All-Star game. The way fans abuse and disgrace the voting process.
Ballot Breakdown
The 61st NHL All-Star Game is scheduled for January 31, 2016. Is the buzz heading into the game surrounding Patrick Kane or Alex Ovechkin? No, not really. The buzz is now directed at the former Arizona Coyote and current American Hockey League player, John Scott. Scott was recently traded to the Montreal Canadiens before being buried in the AHL, again.
Scott has played in 285 games since entering the NHL in 2008-09, totaling 11 points and accruing 542 penalty minutes in that time. Definitely not the numbers you would expect when talking about an All-Star, but that did not stop fans from making it their mission to vote him into the game.
The old cliche, ‘This is why we cannot have nice things’ comes to mind.
Reporters and writers often try to decipher tone and context when speaking with sports stars but this interview does not leave a lot to the imagination. If you wish to listen to the man himself, here is the interview in its entirety. Listed below are notes taken from John Scott’s interview responses as he explains the highs and lows of being a farce vote for the All-Star game.
“At first I was dead set against it. I did not want to go. I did not think it would be right, but then the process kept going and gaining a little momentum. I started talking to guys around the league, my teammates, my family, and former teammates. Everyone was like, you know what, it started off as a joke but now it’s gained speed. Just go with it.”
“Probably the craziest week and a half I have had other than the birth of my kids. Definitely been a whirlwind from being sent down…getting back to Arizona (Coyotes), traded that same day to Montreal (Canadiens)…now in St. John’s…dealing with my wife’s pregnancy…definitely been stressful…hopefully this All-Star thing can get behind us, and we can get back to normal.”
Scott was asked which jersey he would be wearing in the All-Star game. He mentioned he was not sure yet, but it seems he may have made his decision.
Unfortunately, this is not the first attempted farce All-Star nomination. The most notable attempt, which fell short of its goal, was heading into the 2007 NHL All-Star game when the internet did its best to vote Rory Fitzpatrick into the lineup.
Rory Fitzpatrick played 287 games spanning the 1995-96 season through the 2007-08 season collecting 35 points and 201 penalty minutes throughout his career. The “All-Star campaign” season was Fitzpatrick’s one season played with the Vancouver Canucks. He did not collect his first point of that season until New Years Eve.
More recently, the 2015 NHL All-Star game had the unique situation of the only Latvian-born player earning the full support of his home nation to vote him in. The Buffalo Sabres Zemgus Girgensons was the leading vote getter with over 250,000 votes over the second place finisher, Patrick Kane. To put that into perspective, going into the All-Star game Girgensons had 22 points, Kane had 51 points.
All-Star Voting Tipped Foul
Switching to the NBA, here is their example of All-Star game voting tomfoolery leading into their Valentine’s Day “classic”.
Here is the explanation offered by NBA.com‘s Lang Whitaker:
Zaza Pachulia also made a late push, from eighth to fourth in voting for the West’s frontcourt, thanks to a concerted effort to get out the international vote. Pachulia ended up falling just 14,000 votes short of winning a starting spot…
Here is another explanation of the Zaza Pachulia situation, which would have reached John Scott levels had the fans had managed to put him in the starting lineup ahead of Kahwi Leonard.
Un-Fair Home Advantage
Let us not forget about the MLB!
That is where the eventual MVP of the league, Josh Donaldson, almost did not get the start at third base in the 2015 All-Star game because of all the hometown Kansas City Royals fans ballot box stuffing.
You know the voting process in baseball is broken when it becomes the topic of the conversation during the first intermission of Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final. Don Cherry has been doing a segment called “Coach’s Corner” on “Hockey Night in Canada” for over 30 years.
While some of Don Cherry’s stats are incorrect, here is a reminder of how the voting tallies looked five weeks before the event.
How Do We Fix It?
One cannot complain about the problem without attempting to offer solutions. Reports have already circulated that the NHL has already figured out where it went wrong:
…the NHL will explore other options when it comes to the fan vote for the All-Star game.
Possibilities include fans getting just a portion of the vote for captains or a list prescribed by the league that fans can choose from.
How was this not the original plan?
It is said that history is the greatest teacher. How can the NHL have overlooked all the proof that in this day and age of social media, any possible way to skew numbers will be exploited? This is not a situation of leading a horse to water, and not being able to make it drink. It is the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.
Who remembers how professional leagues used to tabulate votes before the internet? It seems asinine to have to turn back the clock and have mail-in ballots or drop-off boxes available at the team’s arena and offices. Even going to such an extreme, you will still have celebrities who endorse players on social media to sway votes.
Limiting the names you put the All-Star ballot is a start. However, limiting people to one entry is a must, even though that is virtually impossible in the on-line age. People generally have more than one e-mail address or use computers from multiple locations, giving them multiple IP addresses. So the problem is still the same, it will be about how they manage it, and how much weight is given to the fan vote.
Fans voting for players in the All-Star game is nothing more than good publicity by the respective league. If the league is the parent and the voters are their children, is it not time to punish the children for abusing their privileges?
The fans do not choose who is voted into the Hall of Fame, special committees in each respective league make those choices. Is it time that each league forms a special committee of experts, whether it be former players or writers, to vote on the All-Star selections?
The NHL is so desperate to make their All-Star weekend viable, they are playing it 3-on-3 this year after the fantasy draft method fizzled fast last year. In addition, there is a cash prize for the winning team, though a million dollars to a bunch of multi-millionaires is not likely to be a heavy motivator. Though hopefully, the winning players will donate the cash prize to a deserving charity.
Baseball attached a World Series home field advantage to their All-Star game to give it meaning. Yet, both leagues allow their voting processes to be the butt of many, many jokes.
At the end of the day, if the league can not find a way to fix the broken voting system the game will remain the mockery that it has become. Why should the players take that seriously?