10 ways to improve the NHL - Hal Style

Everyone knows that the NHL Allstar game is boring. The highlight of the skills competition is Alex Ovechkin dressing up in funny costumes, which goes to show the lack of entertainment value. To be fair however, all All-Star games are boring. I couldn't even imagine watching an NFL or Baseball one.

Here are 10 ways to improve the NHL-Allstar Game

1) Get rid of the shitty players voted in by idiot fans
Sure, fan voting is part of allstar events, but when players like Mike Komisarek make the team, you know something went wrong. A committee of Hal, Harc, and Hosh will filter the shitty players that have been voted in

2)Have goalie shootout on players
Reverse the rolls a little bit in the skills competition and have Kiprusoft, Poouongo, and 2009-2010 NHL version of Nabokov take a series of shots against Crosby, Ovechkin, and Kolvachuk. How could this NOT be TV dynamite?

3)Get rid of lame competitions like fastest skater and add in awesome ones
For example: Four players from the East and West each take turns shooting at a pump target at each of the four corners of the net (4 shots each). The pumps are attached to balloons and whichever team gets all four balloons to pop first, wins. How awesome would that be?!?!?! You are lying to yourself if you think you WOULDN"T watch that.
Another idea is to have hardest hitter competition. Set up a dummy along the boards loaded with sensors and have players skate in and check him. That'd be fucking awesome and you know it.

4) Someone (Ovechkin) has to do a shootout shot blindfolded

5) NHL vs. Joes
Pros vs. Joes is a sweet show. However, they can only get criminals (Michael Vick), over the hill athletes(Donovan McNabb), or retired stars (everyone else). Why don't we have a live Pros vs. Joes where all the Pros are in their prime! It could only be for one period, with the Joes being randomly selected people who entered their name in the contest. For ever goal the Joes score, their entire team wins prizes. For ever goal the NHL scores, $10,000 bucks gets donated to charity. How could this NOT work? Actually I don't think an NHL player has ever been on Pros vs. Joes, so this idea makes it doubly awesome. Hell, I'd rather watch this for 90 minutes than the lame allstar game

6)Harc's idea - Put in AHL and Minor league goaltenders for the shootout skills competition
This is definitely the best option so they could actually score on the sick dekes that they pull off


7) A coach needs to organize the Flying V during the game

8)Have Cabbie interview all the players the night before and play all the interviews throughout breaks/tv time outs/intermissions of the game
This would get the crowd laughing and going and realize that NHL players are regular joes that will actually have fun with a reporter


9) Split up the All-star game
So the NHL game will be divided into these 3 periods:
1st period - NHL vs. Joes (see reason 5 for why this would be awesome)
2nd period - NHL players playing a different sport (alternates each year). THis would be sweet cause it's fun watching athletes doing something out of their element. You can't tell me you wouldn't stay tuned to see a 5 on 5 basketball game with Iginla, Nash, H.Sedin, Datsyuk, Heatley vs. Kolvachuk, Crosby, Ovechkin, Chara, Stamkos. IT'd be awesome! Although everyone knows an Iginla, Nigel Dawes, Anson Carter, George Larque, and Wayne Simmonds team would just dominate everyone
3rd period - Have the actual game. It's not very intense, so 20 minutes of action will be good enough

10) Have fire works after the game ... because ... who doesn't like fire works?

-Hal

The Ovechkin Hit

Look at fucking Gonchar fly in the air. he pretty much does an airborne 360 with his extended knee. it doesn't look like ovechkin is skating too fast, but just the force and impact of the guy sent shockwaves through gonchards body. its a good thing zednik wasn't hanging out nearby.

it sucks for everyone in the pool that has gonchar... which is a lot of people. i hope they suspend ovi, because it would be good for me in the pool because ive got savard instead.

gonchar is probably out for a while, unless hes got a charlie horse in which case he'll be fine (i think... i dont know anything about charlie horses). but its more likely that hes injured. this should help the capitals because because gonchar has been the pens best defenseman by far, and the pittsburgh defense is extremely weak without gonchar. they really only started playing good this season once gonchar got back from his injury. they really sucked without him.

at the same time varlachoke is actin up. some of the goals he let in today were pretty weak. he really should have had the fifth one. im amazed that varlamov has been playing so well so far. but hes bound to choke.

if the varlamov wall has been broken, and gonchar is truly injured, then which ever team emerges out of the first round between pittsburgh and washington will emerge at a worse skill level than when they entered. wouldn't it be crazy if carolina emerges out of the east? i really think the west has the stanley cup on lockdown this season, unless its pittsburgh who might be able to do it just because they were so close last time.

-hark

The 2009 Playoff Pool Update

Now that we are winding down the first round of the playoffs it is getting time to make second round picks. Malkin and Crosby were huge point getters in the first round along with ovechkin. 66% of people had pick all 3 of these guys. I was one person daring enough to stray away from that opinion by choosing sean avery. it was the biggest mistake of my life and so far has cost me 9 points on everyone else (who knows, maybe avery can make it up big in game 7?). next round i will not make that same mistake and miss out on malkin, although i may skip out on ovechkin because it has taken him a long time in this series to eleveate his game to to the playoff level.

Hal is atop the leader board with a commanding 18 point lead over last place frazyfoshazy. his girlfriend kyla is in second place, so if they can stay atop the leaderboard as a couple we will have to buy them both Denny's. It will be the same method that gary bettman uses when he hands the conn smyth trophy to both the sedin sisters.

Me and hosh are both about tied right now with sean. but me and sean will be the only ones gaining points because most hosh's players are done for the playoffs. sean has the smart pick up of staal which gained him a few points on hosh and i tonight. my picks that i hope to do well are avery, iginla, thorton, neidermyer. everyone has green and ovechkin, i just gotta hope that boyle gets held off the score sheet, and i don't care if nabakov gets the wins because neidermyer and thorton will always trump that fact. although i really would like to see anaheim win that way the canucks dont have to play detroit next round. ur going down hosh!

Because i am pretty confident that i will win the pool this year, i am willing to tell you who i amthinking about picking for the next round. Watching Ray Whitney play today for the carolina hurricanes, he looked like a good pickup gettin 4 points mainly off assists to staal. i really want to take someone off chicago for the next round. sharp looks good but it would be tough to pick him over taves, havlat or kane. but cam barker on defense has been scoring like an offenseman with 3 goals so far in this series. cam was a superstar in the whl for the red deer rebels, but he has never performed amazing until this years playoff series. he could be this years rj umbeger or johna franzen. speak of johan franzen, it seems like he will be repeating again this next round, im going to be taking him for sure. thats just a teaser of some of the picks i am thinking of making. for the rest you will have to wait till the start of the second round, because ive got some top secret picks that i dont want anyone to know.

This year we are pleased to have the duo of the 2manadvantage competing against us in the pool. currently they are near the bottom of the pool, however they've got more players with games left than anyone else. watch them to make up some ground in the last few days before the first round ends. they were the only ones in the pool to successfully branch away from the malkin-crosby-ovechkin trio. they got savard and parize who have combined for 11 points. we're glad to have these guys in the pool, although we can't guarantee they will ever recieve the grand prize of a denny's grans slam breakfast if they win. its not because these guys live out east, its just because we're always too lazy to pay the winner.

good luck in the next round

-hark