Tonight's the NHL's all-star game (held in Dallas, of all hockey hotbeds). The score's currently 9-7, with 15 minutes left in the 3rd period, which certainly looks more like a football score than anything related to hockey. I haven't watched much of the game tonight, but landed on it as I was surfing around after a couple hours of playing Resistance. What strikes me is how much more I enjoy the baseball all-star extravaganza than this, for a couple of reasons.
I like how baseball introduced the idea of basing the extra home game in the World Series on the results of the mid-summer classic. That obviously lent some importance to it that had previously been lacking, and you can see that in the way the managers have worked the game the last several years. The reward of an extra home game, in the most important series of the year, is heady enticement indeed for everyone involved, since you never know at that time who's actually going to make the post-season, so virtually the entire team and coaching staff can imagine they're vying to win that October advantage for their own MLB organization.
The other difference is that the quality and style of play in the baseball showcase is pretty similar to what you see the rest of the year, in stark contrast to hockey's version. In fact, if baseball's all-star game were played like what I'm seeing tonight, the pitchers would be lobbing the balls in and the batters would be using metal bats! I understand why they don't check in a game like tonight's - who wants to see someone injured in a nothing, exhibition game? - but it doesn't make for very realistic hockey.
Oh, and in the time it took me to type this, there've been two goals scored and it's now 10-8 with about 10 minutes left!
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