Parlez-vous Francais?

The All-Star festivities in Montreal are fast approaching as everything is set to get underway this Saturday at the Bell Centre.

This year's ASG will mark the 13th time the game has been played in Montreal. All of the games have been previous played in the Montreal Forum, this is the first time it will be held at the Bell Centre. Ah your first time. You never forget your first time! Well that is unless you get blackout drunk and wake up in a drunken haze with your wallet missing and your arms tied to the bed. Not sure how you got there or why you're in the predicament that you are. Not that I'd know about that from experience... What. Why are you looking at me like that?

To get you excited for you All-Star weekend, the NHL has released an ad with some french sayings in it. Because the game is in Montreal, and they speak french there you see. You can't get anything past thse geniuses in the NHL marketing department.

Most of the french phrases are pretty straight forward and if you even remotely paid attention in elementary school french class or have watched a Gerard Depardieu movie, then you should know them all.

Beasts Of The East Win Skills Showcase

The All-Star weekend festivities are upon us and Saturday night in Atlanta it was time for the SuperSkills Challenge.

All told, it was about as boring as I thought it would be. Though not as terrible as last year in Dallas.

There was a beyond confusing Obstacle Course challenge which the East won to give them a 2-1 lead.

The next event was the Faster Skater which saw Edmonton's Shawn Horcoff surprise everybody and win it by beating hometown favourite Ilya Kovalchuk and Brian Campbell of the Sabres. The Eastern Conference did get a point though for having the faster average time making the score 3-2 for the East.

The fans in Atlanta, bored out of their minds from the previous two events, finally got into things when it was time for the Elimination Shootout. Dion Phaneuf of the Flames was a surprising winner of the event with two flashy goals. Phaneuf won the event with two goals, giving the West the lead 4-3.

All that fan interest and momentum from the Shootout wouldn't last long as the NHL sucked the life out of Phillips Arena with the YoungStars game. It was a 3-on-3 game with two 6 minute periods, and nobody really worried about playing defense. targets. Nicklas Backstrom of the Washington Capitals and Brandon Dubinsky of the New York Rangers scored two goals apiece as the East youngstars barely held on for a 7-6 win after being up by five goals.

Patrick Kane of the Chicago Blackhawks had a pair of goals for the West, but it was Dubinsky who was named YoungStars game MVP. Points in the YoungStars game were based on which team scored the most goals in each six-minute period, meaning each side got a point apiece to make it 5-4 West.

After everyone woke up from that game, it was time for the Accuracy Challenge. This event was won by Toronto's Tomas Kaberle, who on any given night at the ACC can be found frustrating fans by passing the puck almost any chance he gets instead of shooting. Kaberle went a perfect 4 for 4 in the first round, and then beat Preds star Jason Arnott in a head to head final to give the East the lead yet again, 6-5.

Then the giant from Boston, Zdeno Chara took the Hardest Shot competition registering a 103.1 mph slapper on the radar gun. This successfully beat Tampa Bay's Vinny Lecavalier who shot 101.9 mph. This was Chara's second straight victory in the event, and it also clinched a victory for the East by putting them up 8-5.

After nearly two hours it was now time for what everyone was looking forward to most, the brand spankin' new "Breakaway Challenge."

Former Thrashers captain Scott Mellanby, former Atlanta Hawks basketball star Dominique Wilkins, Canadian actor Taylor Kitsch and hockey broadcaster Bill Clement were the "celebrity" judges for the Breakaway Challenge, and they punished hard for efforts that didn't show any creativity.

Pavel Datsyuk'a first attempt, for example, was a simple run-of-the-mill deke and he got harshly judged.

Ryan Getzlaf of the Anaheim Ducks and Marian Gaborik of the Minnesota Wild both tried imaginative moves, Gaborik winning over the panel for 30 points when he went behind the net and tried a wrap-around that failed.

The hometown fans got a kick out of Kovalchuk's second attempt, when he also got 30 points from the judges for dropping to his knees and trying to score on a wrist shot only to be stopped by Manny Legace of the St. Louis Blues.

While Alex Ovechkin of the Capitals scored on his first attempt, a rather pedestrian deke, it was his entertaining second attempt that missed the mark but wowed the judges. The Caps sniper bounced the puck in the air and attempted to bat it in, earning 35 points despite failing to score.

The West got the overall team point but Ovechkin got the individual honour to make the final 9-6 for the East.

All in all, yes this was an improvement over last year's embarrassing skills competition in Dallas, but this year was also a bit of snoozer and the NHL has a long way to go. I'd like to see a skills challenge where the fans make up the events. There's no doubt it in my mind it would be far more entertaining than what the big wigs at the NHL come up with year after year. For how boring this was though, it'll only get worse with tonight's All-Star game. A yearly bore that sees no physical play and where the players involved look like they'd rather be doing something else, anything else, than play in the game. Seriously, do you need your dog walked? Do you need your driveway shoveled? Because I think it wouldn't be too hard to arrange to have one of the players do it so that they can skip out on the event.

In case you missed it, and in case you care, here's the video from the Breakaway Challenge.

All-Star Weekend News Roundup

There's a bunch of news about the All-Star weekend being released today. And if you're anytihng like me (really really ridiculously good looking) then you probably couldn't care less. I'm still going to write about it anyhow. Here are all the latest developments about the weekend festivities scheduled to go down in Hot-lanta.

YoungStars Game

Pittsburgh's Tyler Kennedy will be replaced by New Jersey's David Clarkson. Kennedy will miss the game as he's been diagnosed with a case of mono. (The kissing disease.) I wonder who on the team he caught it from. I'm going to go with Jarkko Ruutu.

Entertainment at the All-Star Game

Yesterday the NHL announced that it has lined up a cavalcade of star musicians to perform at the game.

- The Hives will open the 56th NHL All-Star Game with a performance of their hit song "Tick Tick Boom."

- The Atlanta Boys Choir will perform the U.S. National Anthem prior to the start of the All-Star game. Meanwhile Canadian alternative country singer/songwriter Kathleen Edwards will perform the Canadian National Anthem. What, Nickelback was busy? I'm Canadian and I've never even heard of Kathleen Edwards.

-The Atlanta based marching band, Halftime Live, will take the ice with Ne-Yo during the second intermission. With a 75 person crew of trained musicians and dancers, it's bound to be a disaster on ice. Also, with all this going on, when will the Zamboni clean the ice?

Breakaway Challenge

The NHL has announced the details of the brand new, super exciting, sure to blow your mind, "Breakaway Challenge."

Six of the NHL's most prolific and creative scorers will showcase their best moves in quest of a 'perfect 10' when they square off against All-Star goaltenders in the inaugural Breakaway Challenge, the signature event in Saturday's NHL SuperSkills Competition.

Three shooters from the Eastern and Western Conference will have two attempts to perform a highlight-reel trick while attempting to score. Shooters can start their routine from anywhere in the offensive zone and have full access to the offensive zone, including behind the net. NHL penalty shot rules do not apply. A panel of celebrity judges will evaluate each attempt and give a score of one to nine points. Scoring is based on creativity, execution and ability to score. An additional point will be awarded for a goal for a maximum total of 10 points per shooter.

And that panel of "celebrity" judges will consist of:

Former Atlanta Thrashers captain Scott Melanby

Former Atlanta Hawks basketball star Dominique Wilkins

Friday Night Lights actor Taylor Kitsch

Broadcaster Bill Clement

Wow, so those are the "stars" the NHL were able to get. They really need to get a new celebrity booker.

Now of course the "Breakaway Challenge" would be nothing without the players. Scheduled to take part in the competition are;

Eastern Conference forwards Ilya Kovalchuk of the All-Star host Atlanta Thrashers, Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals and Martin St. Louis of the Tampa Bay Lightning, who will face Western Conference goaltenders Manny Legace of the St. Louis Blues, Evgeni Nabokov of the San Jose Sharks and Chris Osgood of the Red Wings.

Western Conference forwards Pavel Datsyuk of the Red Wings, Marian Gaborik of the Minnesota Wild and Ryan Getzlaf of the Anaheim Ducks will oppose Eastern Conference goaltenders Rick DiPietro of the New York Islanders, Tim Thomas of the Bruins and Tomas Vokoun of the Florida Panthers.

So there you go. There is all the latest All-Star news. I still have no intention of watching the All-Star game on Sunday because I could probably find more exciting things to do like knit a sweater. But I may tune in to the end of the skills competition to catch the breakaway challenge just to see if anyone hurts themselves trying to do something dumb.

Habs To Host '09 All-Star Game

The NHL Board of Governors on Tuesday approved Montreal as the site of the 2009 All-Star Game, an event that will come during the season when the Canadiens celebrate their 100th anniversary.

Montreal has hosted a league-high 13 All-Star Games, but the last was in 1993. That went down as one of the highest scoring All-Star contests in history with a final score of Wales Conference 16, Campbell Conference 6.

"We're very, very happy to have been appointed the All-Star Game," Canadiens president Pierre Boivin told the Canadian Press. "It's going to be our centennial year and we said from the beginning that we want to do everything so that Montreal really becomes hockey-centric and that it'd be a year of celebration of not only the franchise but or our national sport and our great game and all of its heroes."

Toronto hosted Canada's last All-Star Game in 2000, when the World team beat the North American team 9-4. Montreal's Bell Centre has been open since the 1995-96 season but this will be it's first All-Star game.

It's nice to see the NHL do something right for a change. Give the All-Star weekend festivities to a hockey crazed city where people at the game will actually know what's going on. And making it extra special is the fact that it will be the Habs' 100th Anniversary. I know I come across as a bit of a grumpy gus on this site every once in awhile, but I have to give the NHL props for making a great decision this time. (Does anyone actually say "give props" anymore? If not, I'm totally bringing it back)

Evgeni Malkin Is Now An All-Star...So Are 4 Others

The NHL has named Pittsburgh Penguins forward Evgeni Malkin to the Eastern Conference All-Star team. Many thought the NHL were snubbing Malkin by not initially adding him to the team for missing last year's awards ceremony.

Malkin will be heading to Atlanta to replace his team mate Sidney Crosby who will miss the next six to eight weeks of the season while he recovers from a high ankle sprain.

In 48 games this year, the Soviet Sniper has 26 goals and 30 assists. (Yes I know the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore but Soviet Sniper has much more of a ring to it than Russian Sniper.)

Malkin however isn't the only All-Star addition announced today as 4 other players were also added. They are:

Eastern Conference

Boston goalie Tim Thomas replaces New Jersey goalie Martin Brodeur

Western Conference

Anaheim defenseman Scott Niedermayer replaces Dallas defenseman Sergei Zubov

Anaheim forward Corey Perry replaces Colorado forward Paul Statsny

Dallas forward Mike Ribeiro replaces Detroit forward Henrik Zetterberg

I'm sure the NHL is thrilled about these turn of events. The biggest star in the game being replaced by his less famous team mate, amongst other big stars missing out. Seriously, is anybody going to watch the All-Star game anymore. Can you even legally have an All-Star game without All-Stars? Somebody needs to look into this.

YoungStars Rosters Announced

The YoungStars game. It's easily my least favourite part of the All-Star weekend. The game itself should be exciting with the future stars of hockey getting to strut their stuff. Rather it is the exact opposite of that as the game is played with a general malaise that you would only see in a Manitoban Rec. League game played by a bunch of drunks. The players look like they couldn't care less, and the 5,000 fans in the stands who even bothered to show up share the exact same sentiment.

With that being said, the NHL did announce the YoungStars rosters for both conferences today, with the exception of the goalies. The NHL must feel there are no good young goalies so they're going to go with the netminders from the All-Star game.

Eastern Conference

Defensemen

Tobias Enstrom, Atlanta

Kris Letang, Pittsburgh

Mike Lundin, Tampa Bay

Marc Staal, New York Rangers

Forwards

Nicklas Backstrom, Washington

Brandon Dubinsky, New York Rangers

Tyler Kennedy, Pittsburgh

Milan Lucic, Boston

Western Conference

Defensemen

Alexander Edler, Vancouver

Erik Johnson, St. Louis

Jack Johnson, Los Angeles (editors note: For you music fans, this is not the sensitive soft rock musician who's responsible for the "Curious George" soundtrack)

Matt Niskanen, Dallas

Forwards

Sam Gagner, Edmonton

Patrick Kane, Chicago

Peter Mueller, Phoenix

David Perron, St. Louis

Savard Replaces Heatley As An All-Star

Two stories about a Boston Bruins player in one day? What is this world coming to!

Bruins centre Marc Savard has been selected to the Eastern Conference All-Star team in place of injured Ottawa star Dany Heatley.

Heatley broke the hearts of everyone in Ottawa when he went down with a separated shoulder in Saturday's 3-2 win over Detroit. He is expected to be out of service for 4-6 weeks.

When the Eastern Conference All-Star rosters were announced, many scratched their heads as to why Savard was left off considering that he's having a good year with 11 goals and 34 assists for the B's.

I wonder why Pittsburgh's Evgeni Malkin wasn't added instead. He has better numbers than Savard with 20 goals and 29 helpers for 49 points. Did he pull a Mats Sundin and tell the NHL he wanted nothing to do with the event? I guess we'll have to wait and see if another player gets injured to find out if Malkin will be added.

Eastern Conference All-Stars Named

Yesterday the NHL announced who would be heading to Atlanta at the end of the month for the Western conference, and today they have announced who would be attending for the East. I'm not really surprised by any of the selections other than to say the goaltending is a bit suspect. But because each team needs one representative, who else would the Panthers or Islanders send?

Let's take a look at the full Eastern Conference All-Star Roster.

GOALIES

Martin Brodeur, New Jersey

Rick DiPietro, NY Islanders

Tomas Vokoun, Florida

DEFENSE

Andrei Markov, Montreal

Zdeno Chara, Boston

Brian Campbell, Buffalo

Sergei Gonchar, Pittsburgh

Tomas Kaberle, Toronto

Kimmo Timonen, Philadelphia

FORWARDS

Sidney Crosby, Pittsburgh

Vincent Lecavalier, Tampa Bay

Daniel Alfredsson, Ottawa

Scott Gomez, NY Rangers

Dany Heatley, Ottawa

Marian Hossa, Atlanta

Ilya Kovalchuk, Atlanta

Alex Ovechkin, Washington

Mike Richards, Philadelphia

Jason Spezza, Ottawa

Eric Staal, Carolina

Martin St. Louis, Tampa Bay

Western Conference All-Stars Named

Two days ago the NHL announced the starting lineups for both the Eastern and Western conference all-star teams, and today they've named the rest of the roster for the West. One big surprise is that the Canucks' Sedin twins have been split up for once. Henrik Sedin was named to the team, but his brother Daniel was left off.

For most of their lives they've played together. They were drafted by Vancouver with back to back picks in the 1999 NHL Entry Draft. The Sedins also played together with MoDo in Sweden before being selected by the Canucks, and both played again for MoDo during the lockout. They were even both part of Sweden's gold medal winning team at the 2006 Olympics in Turino. With that being said, Daniel must be an emotional mess now that he'll be separated from his brother for one day. He'll feel so lost in a world without Henrik. However will he survive?

Other than Henrik Sedin, let's find out who else made the Western Conference All-Star Team. Another note about the Western team is that Roberto Luongo had to be replaced because he'll be taking time off for the birth of his first child.

GOALTENDERS
Manny Legace, St. Louis
Evgeni Nabokov, San Jose
Chris Osgood, Detroit

DEFENSE
Nicklas Lidstrom, Detroit
Dion Phaneuf, Calgary
Ed Jovanovski, Phoenix
Duncan Keith, Chicago
Chris Pronger, Anaheim
Sergei Zubov, Dallas

FORWARDS
Henrik Zetterberg, Detroit
Pavel Datsyuk, Detroit
Jarome Iginla, Calgary
Jason Arnott, Nashville
Marian Gaborik, Minnesota
Ryan Getzlaf, Anaheim
Shawn Horcoff, Edmonton
Anze Kopitar, Los Angeles
Rick Nash, Columbus
Henrik Sedin, Vancouver
Paul Stastny, Colorado
Joe Thornton, San Jose

The NHL will announce the Eastern Conference All-Star Roster Friday at noon.

Hey Now, You're An All Star

First off, I'd like to apologize for quoting Smash Mouth in the headline of this post. It was a bad decision on my part. Though I do wonder whatever happenened to those guys. Last I heard, they were performing on an Argentinian street corner for nickles. No word of a lie.

But even more exciting news than hearing what Smash Mouth has been up to lately is that the NHL has announced the starting line-ups for this year's All Star Game. And to be honest with you they are all pretty expected. No real surprises. I was hoping some crazed, devoted fan would vote enough and rig it so that somebody like Wade Belak or Jordin Tootoo would get voted in, but alas it didn't happen.

Let's take a look at the starting line-ups for both conferences and also see how the voting turned out. Number of all star appearances for each player appears in brackets.

Eastern Conference

Sidney Crosby (2nd)

Vincent Lecavalier (3rd)

Daniel Alfredsson (5th)

Zdeno Chara (3rd)

Andrei Markov (1st)

Martin Brodeur (10th)

Western Conference

Henrik Zetterberg (2nd)

Pavel Datsyuk (2nd)

Jarome Iginla (4th)

Dion Phaneuf (2nd)

Nicklas Lidstrom (10th)

Roberto Luongo (3rd)

Final Voting Tally

Eastern Conference

Goalies

Martin Brodeur New Jersey 220,392

Henrik Lundqvist NY Rangers 175,350

Cristobal Huet Montreal 170,215

Martin Biron Philadelphia 123,025

Ryan Miller Buffalo 90,146

Ray Emery Ottawa 56,293

Rick DiPietro NY Islanders 55,395

Cam Ward Carolina 42,753

Olaf Kolzig Washington 34,712

Tomas Vokoun Florida 28,029

Forwards

Sidney Crosby Pittsburgh 507,274

Vincent Lecavalier Tampa Bay 224,661

Daniel Alfredsson Ottawa 224,483

Daniel Briere Philadelphia 188,740

Alex Ovechkin Washington 177,574

Ilya Kovalchuk Atlanta 173,629

Dany Heatley Ottawa 134,782

Saku Koivu Montreal 112,794

Maxim Afinogenov Buffalo 111,425

Chris Drury NY Rangers 92,337

Evgeni Malkin Pittsburgh 79,566

Mats Sundin Toronto 77,814

Jason Blake Toronto 72,905

Jaromir Jagr NY Rangers 72,646

Alex Kovalev* Montreal 67,340

Simon Gagne Philadelphia 63,074

Jason Spezza Ottawa 62,595

Marian Hossa Atlanta 58,991

Thomas Vanek Buffalo 56,936

Mike Richards* Philadelphia 55,145

Martin St. Louis Tampa Bay 47,798

Patrik Elias New Jersey 47,536

Brendan Shanahan NY Rangers 46,016

Vyacheslav Kozlov Atlanta 39,528

Eric Staal Carolina 35,179

Marc Savard Boston 27,870

Bill Guerin NY Islanders 27,097

Scott Gomez NY Rangers 26,936

Olli Jokinen Florida 25,959

Justin Williams Carolina 21,532

Brian Gionta New Jersey 20,752

Brad Richards Tampa Bay 15,458

* write-in candidate

Defensemen

Andrei Markov Montreal 316,136

Zdeno Chara Boston 271,272

Brian Campbell Buffalo 205,332

Tomas Kaberle Toronto 193,634

Kimmo Timonen Philadelphia 156,471

Wade Redden Ottawa 150,284

Jay Bouwmeester Florida 140,058

Ryan Whitney Pittsburgh 138,655

Bryan McCabe Toronto 111,154

Dan Boyle Tampa Bay 106,203

Chris Phillips Ottawa 103,203

Henrik Tallinder Buffalo 86,070

Western Conference

Goalies

Roberto Luongo Vancouver 263,221

Pascal Leclaire Columbus 180,381

Dominik Hasek Detroit 119,465

J-S Giguere Anaheim 102,051

Miikka Kiprusoff Calgary 84,416

Niklas Backstrom Minnesota 79,727

Evgeni Nabokov San Jose 58,434

Nikolai Khabibulin Chicago 53,217

Marty Turco Dallas 47,680

Forwards

Henrik Zetterberg Detroit 326,244

Pavel Datsyuk Detroit 303,309

Jarome Iginla Calgary 244,538

Mike Cammalleri Los Angeles 165,042

Joe Sakic Colorado 162,489

Joe Thornton San Jose 147,795

Jonathan Cheechoo San Jose 143,375

Marian Gaborik Minnesota 139,828

Ryan Getzlaf Anaheim 132,180

Jason Arnott Nashville 127,288

Rick Nash Columbus 118,240

Paul Stastny Colorado 113,928

Mike Modano Dallas 98,086

Paul Kariya St. Louis 76,703

Shane Doan Phoenix 75,595

Anze Kopitar Los Angeles 64,856

Markus Naslund Vancouver 54,788

Ryan Smyth Colorado 50,222

Ales Hemsky Edmonton 49,680

Henrik Sedin Vancouver 47,797

Daniel Sedin Vancouver 46,795

Martin Havlat Chicago 46,321

Milan Hejduk Colorado 42,255

Andy McDonald St. Louis 35,196

Keith Tkachuk St. Louis 32,576

Patrick Marleau San Jose 31,268

Brian Rolston Minnesota 27,423

Daymond Langkow Calgary 26,157

Brenden Morrow Dallas 23,991

Patrick Kane* Chicago 18,589

David Legwand Nashville 13,881

* write-in candidate

Defensemen

Nicklas Lidstrom Detroit 477,787

Dion Phaneuf Calgary 307,358

Chris Pronger Anaheim 206,590

Rob Blake Los Angeles 177,113

Francois Beauchemin Anaheim 151,746

Brian Rafalski Detroit 139,492

Sergei Zubov Dallas 101,585

Sheldon Souray Edmonton 97,539

Scott Hannan Colorado 96,621

Ed Jovanovski Phoenix 91,644

Mattias Ohlund Vancouver 88,579

Lubomir Visnovsky Los Angeles 53,250

Robyn Regehr Calgary 37,022

Crosby Leads East Conference All Star Voting...Surprise surprise

In what had to be the least surprising news of the day, the NHL released the early votes by the fans for the All Star Game. And guess what Mega star/hockey saviour Sidney Crosby leads the way in the east with 177, 873 votes. The next closest forward is Sens captain Daniel "Krusty The Klown" Alfredsson with 80,211 votes.

As far as defencemen and goalies go, the Habs dominate those categories. Andrei Markov leads all d-men with an impressive 115,007 votes. Trailing behind is NHL's giant Zdeno Chara.
And netminder Cristo-wall Huet leads the goalie pack with 64,351 votes just ahead of NYR's Henrik Lundqvist.

The NHL is expected to announce West conference voting tomorrow. Apparently you can vote until January 2nd over at the league's site.