Tuesday, July 22, 2008

San Diego Gulls Soar again... sort of

Tonight while checking one of my lesser checked email addresses, I was excited to be greeted by the subject line "SAN DIEGO GULLS ARE BACK ice hockey PRE BUY TICKETS NOW". I quickly opened the email wondering what league they had joined; returning to the ECHL, maybe into the SPHL or MAHL, or perhaps some brand new league I had not yet heard of!?!
Turns out, San Diego's Pro Hockey team is reuniting for a unique one-time Military Tribute Exhibition game against the Finest the US Military has to offer; Marines from Camp Pendleton, MCAS, Navy, Nave Seals... The Gulls vs The US Military! August 16th @ 7:00 PM at the San Diego Ice Arena.
As I huge fan of the Gulls, I sure wish I was able to attend the game. It would sure be fun to see the a team skating around in those great Gulls jerseys once again!

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Dumb-da-dumb- da-dumb

It's darn hot here right now, so we made a pit stop at the local 7-11 yesterday to get Slurpees and Big Gulps. Unfortunately for us, everyone else had the same idea and both machines had signs taped to them stating that they were "Out of the Order!".
Luckily for us the second 7-11 we visited was not as busy and their machines were still running fine. We chose our favorites and headed to the cash register. While standing in line I spied the cover of Maclean's magazine and had to pick it up.
I had heard rumblings of this cover story on the local sports radio network, but had not really heard the whole story.
So here, for you to enjoy, is the story of the theme song fiasco.

It didn't exactly scream "hit." The demo version someone plinked out on a piano for Ralph Mellanby and a handful of corporate sponsors back in 1967 sounded clunky and uninspiring — a sort of slow sister to the William Tell Overture. But Mellanby, a hotshot young director of what Canadians would soon know as Hockey Night in Canada, imagined the piece with full orchestration. And he heard virtue. "I was the only one," he now says, checking off the list of big-name sponsors who would need convincing before they gave the composition the green light. "Molson didn't like it. Imperial Oil didn't like it. Ford didn't like it at all."

But the composer was Dolores Claman, a 39-year-old jingle-writer who had gained minor fame for penning the theme for Ontario's pavilion at Expo '67 in Montreal. For the past six months, schoolchildren across the province had been singing its "Ontari-ari-ari-o" motif, and if the theme she'd written for hockey inspired half that response, Mellanby figured it could open his show for two, possibly three seasons. In the TV world, that is a long and happy life.

Forty-one years later, those "dunt-da dunt-da-dunts" are burned into the national consciousness — an on-air calling card that has brought the CBC more recognition than Peter Mansbridge or its "exploding 'c' " logo. High-school bands play it from sheet music. It is consistently among the 50 top-selling cellphone ring tones in the country. David Mills, a professor of Canadian history, recalls a story, perhaps apocryphal, of a lone Canadian at Oktoberfest in Munich, rising to his feet and singing a few dunt-dah-dahs for the benefit of the beer-hall crowd. Soon a dozen or so of the Canuck's countrymen scattered around the tent had joined in, roaring out the notes to the bemusement of their European drinking mates. "For anyone under the age of 50, it is the one song that they remember," says Mills. "The song comes on, and that means the hockey game is about to start on Saturday night."

It is the sort of response — emotive, spiritual, Pavlovian — that money can't buy. So hockey fans can be forgiven a moment of slack-jawed amazement this week upon learning that someone had, well, bought it. The news came Monday by way of a CTV press release announcing that the privately owned network had acquired full rights to Claman's piece after negotiations between her and the CBC collapsed. Rick Brace, CTV's president of revenue, business planning and sports, declined to say how much the network paid. But insiders say Claman, now 80 and living in London, received upwards of $2.5 million, having refused a $1-million offer from the public broadcaster late last week.

For CTV, the move was a no-brainer: the network's sports channel TSN, along with its French-language service RDS, had spent years trying to build the sort of affinity with viewers that Claman's song epitomizes. "This theme is part of the fabric of the country," Brace told Maclean's following the announcment. "It's an institution, and any time you can engage your audience on that level you do it. That's how you build a brand."

Why the CBC would let it slip away is a puzzle for the ages. After years of trading on the cultural significance of its broadcast, the corporation appeared determined last week to jettison the hymn that called their fans to communion. On Friday, executives breezily announced a $100,000 contest to come up with a new theme, as if 41 years of tradition could be replaced in a summer jingle-off. A barrage of 1,500 calls and emails from angry viewers gave them pause, and on Monday they announced they wished to reopen talks with the help of a mediator. Yet, in words and in actions, CBC managers rejected the notion that the soul of the broadcast could be tied up in a few bars of music. "What Hockey Night in Canada is really about is hockey," Scott Moore, the executive director of CBC Sports, told one reporter. "Everything else is just window dressing."

As repudiations go, it couldn't be clearer. And Claman, for one, sees it as part of a bigger picture. "I think they've lost the pulse of the public emotion," she said in an interview with Maclean's, noting the outpouring of support from fans of the song on blogs, on radio call-in shows and in letters to the editor. "Of course it's about hockey. But sometimes a thing takes on a life of its own, and I think that's what has happened in this case."

While Claman was speaking strictly from her own experience, she has put her finger on a problem that is increasingly obvious to Hockey Night viewers. For years, the Saturday night juggernaut has been wobbling on its pedestal, stalled in the ratings, leaking talent to rival networks, fighting tooth-and-nail for NHL broadcast rights. As the pressure has risen, the show's masters at CBC have responded precipitously, often demonstrating a shocking ignorance of what drew people to their product in the first place.

The first sign of trouble came during the network's 2002 contract dispute with Ron MacLean, the genial host and straight man to Don Cherry's one-man circus. Taken aback by MacLean's reported demand for a $400,000 annual salary, the Mother Corp. drew a line in the sand, preparing for the eventuality he would leave. When word leaked to the media, all hell broke loose: fans from across the country wrote letters and emails demanding that the quirky yet knowledgeable MacLean be retained, and CBC was forced to climb down, signing MacLean for a reported $450,000. Yet two years after the MacLean crisis passed, another on-air favourite, Chris Cuthbert, received his walking papers on the grounds that the NHL lockout made him dispensible. Cuthbert's departure raised nothing like the furor over MacLean's contract dispute, but it did point to a serious lack of planning. Viewers and hockey insiders alike viewed him as the heir apparent to Hockey Night's aging play-by-play man Bob Cole, and weren't surprised when he quickly signed with TSN. That Cuthbert could double as a football play-by-play man made the decision look even worse.

The moves the CBC has made have done little to improve the show's ratings, which have stagnated or fallen at a time when countrywide interest in hockey has surged. Ten seasons ago, an average of 1.1 million people would tune in to the first game of Hockey Night's Saturday double-header; in 2007-08, that number stood at just 1.17 million, which is actually 94,000 fewer than watched five seasons ago. Playoff ratings have waxed and waned, depending on whether Canadian teams are active in late rounds. But the average audience for the 2008 playoffs was 1.3 million, down nine per cent from last year when the Ottawa Senators played the Anaheim Ducks in the finals. That the numbers have flatlined at a time when the NHL is coming off three straight years of record attendance isn't exactly heartening. Nor is the fact that TSN has seen its audience grow 32 per cent in the last five seasons, according to the NHL. In fact, the week before it scooped up the theme song, the network signed a new six-year deal with the league that will see it telecast 70 games in the regular season, all of them involving Canadian teams.

Then there's the regional thing — a growing conviction that the CBC's desire to draw viewers in southern Ontario results in force-feedings of the Toronto Maple Leafs to the entire national audience. Even an all-Canadian matchup between the Ottawa Senators and Calgary Flames might give way on Saturday night, note critics, if there's a Toronto-Atlanta game available. The effect has been to erode the game's mythic position as a force bringing the country together. "We perceive it to be pro-Leafs and anti-Canadiens," says Montreal Gazette columnist Mike Boone, who writes a fan blog on the newspaper's website, Habsinsideout.com. "It doesn't take long in a tavern discussion to get people going on Hockey Night and [Don] Cherry." That Cherry openly states his support for Toronto has long irked Montreal fans, but their aversion for the telecast reached new heights this year, when the talented Habs became the hottest team in the league yet the Toronto Maple Leafs — settled in their familiar place near the bottom of the rankings — remained the stars of Hockey Night.

CBC added more Montreal games, and covered the team's two-round playoff run. Moore even posted a response on the CBC website headlined, "We love Montreal. We really do." — a damage-control move that Boone dismisses as "slamming the barn door when the horse was in the next county." The statistics bear him out: during the playoffs, French-language RDS twice topped CBC's countrywide viewership, meaning a good many Anglos outside Quebec were watching the game in a language they don't understand.

Montreal isn't the only place where the natives are getting restless. "I believe the early game on Hockey Night in Canada is overly weighted in Toronto, mainly because of the time zone and mainly because Ontario's so big and mainly because Ontario hockey fans really do have a large vote in the size and the economic viability of Hockey Night in Canada," says Patrick LaForge, the president of the Edmonton Oilers. But just as fans in Montreal have turned to RDS, fans in the West have turned to other regional broadcasters like Rogers Sportsnet for their hockey fix. Sportsnet, for instance, is becoming an increasingly popular destination for fans of the Vancouver Canucks.

To be sure, Hockey Night's contemporary producers operate in an environment whose complexities dwarf those of the late '60s, when the show moved from a patchwork of telecasts to a regular weekend program. As the NHL spread to other markets across the country, as regional stations bought broadcast rights, as cable sports channels horned in on their territory, the challenge of keeping a distinctly national feel have grown. To his credit, Mellanby foresaw those challenges, and insisted that the show have its own distinctive trappings — "the theme, the jackets, the crests, all that stuff," he recalls.

None of those trappings has proven more important than Claman's song, which Mellanby and executives at McLaren Advertising, the private company that produced Hockey Night in those days, chose over four competing compositions. Neither he nor Claman expected it to last more than a few years. And while Mellanby was in favour of offering Claman $15,000 to release her claim to it, no one else seemed worried about future licensing disputes. "In those days, you just got paid a fee for writing the thing," says Claman. "I was really dumb. So for about 24 years the song was completely unlicensed."

That changed in the early 1990s, when Claman met John Ciccone, the agent who represents her to this day, and who could see that the theme was a potential money-maker. As a songwriter, Claman still held copyright on the tune, and Ciccone suggested she seek a licensing agreement from CBC, the first of three deals that would eventually pay her $500 every time the song aired on CBC, with ancillary payments for other uses. The deal, according to CBC, was worth $65,000 to Claman last year, not counting separate agreements for use of the song she made with other parties.

The pact has never sat well with CBC, says Mellanby, who worked on and off at Hockey Night for 21 years. Three producers who succeeded him have called him wondering why the corporation is still stuck with it, he says. "I'm with the CBC on this one," he says. "At 80 years old, she is a very lucky lady to be still making money from that song." But if the Mother Corp. is frustrated, it may be because Ciccone showed better foresight than they did. Since 1998, the year CBC and Claman's team entered their current licensing agreement, "Internet downloading, file sharing, and mobile ring tones have all become important," says University of Ottawa professor Jeremy De Beer, who teaches digital music law. "Not only did the technology not exist 10 years ago, business models and the licensing strategies didn't either." As Ciccone puts it: "The song started to develop wings of its own. The CBC were resentful they couldn't control it."

Ring tones have driven a particularly sharp wedge between the two sides, resulting in a 2004 lawsuit that formed the backdrop of the recent negotiations. According to the $2.5-million suit, Ciccone's company Copyright Music and Visuals was approached in 2002 by Bell Mobility, which was anxious to turn the hockey song into a ring tone. Ciccone in turn approached the CBC, which he says shot him down — unless the phone company agreed to buy "several hundred thousands of dollars" in advertising time, it couldn't use the name Hockey Night in Canada in its promotion of the ring tones. This despite the broadcaster's admission that it had repeatedly used the song in breach of its agreement, having sold its broadcasts in Japan, Scandinavia and the United Kingdom without paying Claman. The song was eventually licensed as a ring tone — Bell Canada has offered it since 2006. But by then their professional relationship "began to go off the rails," Ciccone says. The CBC has filed a statement of defence against the lawsuit, denying most of Claman's claims, and the case remains unresolved.

Given all of the bad blood between the two sides, the question now is whether it made sense for the CBC to sever its ties with Claman for good. While he did not return repeated requests for interviews from Maclean's, Moore suggested in other interviews that Claman wanted to end the marriage as badly as the broadcaster. "We're probably going to be accused of bungling this," he said. "But I don't know if a deal was ever possible." He also argued that the song's value hung squarely on its connection to the CBC, which has six more years left on its current broadcast agreement with the NHL. "Every time it's played," he said, "people are going to think about our broadcast on Saturday night."

Perhaps for a short time. But the CBC's stranglehold on hockey no longer looks so impregnable. TSN and RDS actually broadcast more games during the regular season than the CBC, while rights to the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver — a potentially colossal event in the hockey world — rest with CTV and Rogers Inc. In Canada, it's worth noting, each of those games will begin with Claman's famous theme, doing much to bind the tune to its new home on the private network.

More disturbing still for the CBC is the comfort level among influential hockey types with the idea of hearing "dunt-da dunt-da-dunt" on TSN. "As long as the song is played somewhere, that's the main thing," says Johnny Bower, the legendary Leafs goalie who led Toronto to three consecutive Stanley Cups in the 1960s. "That's the key: the song will still have something to do with hockey." Paul Henderson, whose game-winning goal against the Russians in the dying seconds of the 1972 Summit Series made him a national hero for life, rejects the idea that the song needs the CBC, or vice versa. "Things have changed, and things change all the time," he says. "My attitude is: they dropped the song. Get over it. Let's move on. I wouldn't be a bit surprised that two years from now, they'll be saying, 'Geez, I'm glad we didn't stay with that old one because this new one is so much better.' "

Some, like Dave "Tiger" Williams, openly tip their hat to CTV, predicting that the public will quickly move on. "I think they pulled off an incredible manoeuvre," says the former tough guy with the Maple Leafs and Canucks. "Twenty years from now, I guarantee you — and I'll bet my house on it — that people will associate that song with hockey. They won't say CBC." Phil Esposito, the former Boston Bruins star and now radio broadcaster for the Tampa Bay Lightning, outright mocks fans who lament the CBC's loss of an iconic tune. "It's a song, man. I've got my favourite song and you've got your favourite song. If that's their favourite song, well, maybe they should watch TSN next year."

Noticeably absent in all of this are predictions of Hockey Night's imminent demise: Cherry did not resign from Coach's Corner; MacLean isn't following his show's famous song to a rival network. But with the stroke of a pen something has undoubtedly changed, marking a shift in mindset that the public broadcaster ignores at its peril. "CBC doesn't have a lock on hockey in this country and hockey needs to grow and mature and move — and the theme song along with it," is how LaForge, the Oilers' president, sums it up. "It's not taken away from Canadians, it's just changed. It may be in a different form somewhere else. It may be in a better form."

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Autographed Bob Chase card

Recently, my friend in Ft Wayne Indiana, sent me this great addition to my collection, an autographed Bob Chase hockey card.
Who is Bob Chase you ask, well let me enlighten you...
Bob Chase was born in Negaunee, Michigan January 22, 1926. He was raised in Marquette, Michigan and after high school joined the United States Navy. Bob served in the Navy from 1943-1947. Upon his discharge from the Navy, Bob entered Northern Michigan University at Marquette and graduated in 1952. While in college, Bob started his radio career in Marquette in 1949.
Bob moved to Fort Wayne to begin his radio career with WOWO AM 1190 in 1953 which included broadcasting Komet Hockey games starting with the 1953-54 season. Bob has not missed a season for 54 years since.
Join Bob Chase in his 55th consecutive season, calling exciting Ft Wayne Komet action radio rinkside on WOWO 1190 and Comcast KometCast!
I have no idea if this is a record, but record or not, 55 consecutive years broadcasting games of a single team is pretty impressive in my books, and this autographed card will go right along with my other prized collectibles.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Ritz Bits - Cheese That's In Your Face!


I love collecting ads, and always love fining any new ads that feature hockey in some say. I recently found this ad on the back of a comic book (Batman Adventures #1, June 2003) for Ritz Bits Sandwiches, which features two Ritz crackers slamming a chunk of cheese into the glass.
I love the ad, but I don't think you could pay me enough to try them. They are essentially two Ritz crackers (which I don't really like anyway), with some warm cheez Whiz glopped in the middle. More 'Mmmm in the middle. Not!

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Why the Leafs Suck!

The most recent issue of Macleans magazine has one of the best magazine covers ever! When I saw this magazine on the magazine rack while standing in the cashier line up at my local Chapters book store, I made an impulse purchase, and picked up this issue.
When I see the Leafs logo, all I can think is "Leafs Suck!", so this magazine is going to have a special place in my hockey collection. Too bad they decided to go with the softer, less offensive word "Stink" instead of just going all the way and saying "Why The Leafs Suck!". We all know that is what everyone in Canada, other than Toronto, is really thinking... and I a sure many of them (Torontonians) are starting to agree with the rest of us.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Two cool Ft Wayne Komets game scheduels

First is the Ft Wayne Komets 2007/08 Schedule Pen

Back on June 2, 2007, I posted about the 1953-54 Ft Wayne Komets Spinning Schedule, which was by far the most innovative and unusual team schedule I had ever seen. It seems the Komets like to produce schedules that stand out from the pack, so this year they produced a schedule pen. But not just any old schedule pen. I have seen other teams print their schedule on a pen (last one I can remember was two seasons ago when the Saskatoon Blades of the WHL produced a large blue pen with their home schedule printed on it.
Taking the idea of a schedule pen to the next level, the Ft Wayne Komets of the IHL have produced a very unusual schedule pen for the 2007/08 season. As seen in the photo above, this looks like a regular 'click' pen, but it has a small metal strip on the side of the pen, which can be pulled out to reveal the full Komets home and away schedule. When you let go, the schedule springs back inside the pen.
Very cool schedule for my collection, and a great idea for all kinds of businesses etc that want an unusual way to advertise!
Posted by Ronn Roxx at 10:22 PM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: hockey, Pocket Schedules, Silly Stuff
Saturday, June 02, 2007

Next up is the 1953-54 Ft Wayne Komets Spinning Schedule

I have been collecting pocket schedules for over 10 years now and have seen many different size schedules, team schedules with multiple (different) covers, odd shaped schedules, schedules on bookmarks & coasters, etc. But today I found a team schedule unlike any I have ever seen before. Its a home schedule for the 1953-54 Fort Wayne Komets of the International Hockey League. This unique schedule has a spinning front ring that allows you to chose the team or the month, and then it displays the game dates for the team or month you have chosen. As well as teams and months, it also has the category "Special"... not sure that that is for?
As a big fan of hockey radio broadcasts and a some time listener of Koemts games over the internet, I found it interesting that one of the sponsors on this schedule is Wowo radio. Pretty amazing that more than 50 years later they are still broadcasting Komets games on the same radio station in Ft. Wayne!

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Nate Sawerchuck, Hockey Player

Big Breams. Bad Slapshop. Back around 2000, I had a friend in Idaho who was sending me all kinds of great Idaho Steelheads (WCHL) stuff. In one of his packages, I received a VHS tape with a movie called "Nate Sawerchuck, Hockey Player". It is a 23 minute mockumentary made by writer/director Steve Glines, who was a referee in the WCHL at the time.
Nate Sawerchuck (Cory Mclaughlin) may not have the skill for a professional hockey career, but don't argue that with the locals of Elk River, Wyoming. This small town hero has been in training since he was a little whipper snapper taking slapshots in the kitchen.
Professional hockey scout Mic Rody (Jim Stoner) discovers this diamond in the rough while stranded in the small mountain town. After Nate is made an honorary 13th round selection in the 1997 draft, Elk River erupts with support for its young star. With direction from his father/agent (Tom Mullin). Nate willingly takes on the role of a superstar.
If you are a fan of minor league hockey and TV & films such as Corner Gas, Slap Shot and This is Spinal Tap, then you will get a kick out of this goofy little film. I have probably watched 10 or more times over the past 8 years and, the more times I watch it, the funnier it becomes. The dry humor is not the sort of thing that everyone will enjoy (or get), but it is so easy for me to watch this and believe it is a true story.
You can check out the complete movie online at Spike.com.

Monday, February 25, 2008

56 ways to "Improve" the NHL All Star Game

On January 27th, 2008, the NHL held the 56th Annual All Star Game (and Skills Competition). As a big hockey fan, I can't help but be bombarded with NHL All Star news and coverage each year. But year after year, I become less and less interested. At this point, I had stopped watching the All Star game, and pretty much just watch the All Star Skills Competition, and this year, even that didn't seem interesting enough for me to tune in.
I did however happen to be flipping channels during the last 20 minutes of the Skills Competition, and I happened to catch the new breakaway format they adopted this season. Instead of just a shootout contest, they added a new twist, by having a panel of 4 judges who saw and watched each players attempted goal, and then gave them a score of 1 - 10, giving points for scoring, as well as flash. Players were trying all sorts of wacky stuff including spinning with the puck, dropping to their knees and sliding in on goal, and flipping the puck up in the air and trying to bat it out of the air like a baseball. It all make for a fun and exciting event.
After catching just the end of this event, I really wanted to see the complete 2 hour Skills Competition, and after checking my online TV guide I found that it was not being repeated... drat!
Luckily, both the All Star Game and Skills Competition both showed up on iTunes recently, so I promptly purchased the Skills Comp and sat in front of my computer watching it from beginning to end. Great stuff!
That said, I still didn't watch the All Star Game.
It looks like I am not the only one who didn't tune into the All Star Game. Here is what The Hockey News had to say in their January 22, 08 issue, about the All Star Game, along with a list of 56 ways to save the All Star Game:

Let’s bring back some luster to the one and only contest that’s supposed to feature the best of the NHL

We came up with 56 solutions to fix the NHL’s marquee-game-that-really-doesn’t-mean-at-all.

And since the NHL All-Star Game (the 56th edition of which is in Atlanta on Jan.27) is meant as a fun weekend for the fans, players and sponsors - oh, the sponsors - alike, we tried to inject a little playfulness into the proceedings. Some suggestions are serious - like, let’s kill the conference versus conference format for ... any other format - while some are brainchilds that might have you thinking we played the game without a helmet for too many years. No matter. The hope is the NHL will embrace the event as a chance to showcase not only its great players, but its great personalities as well. And if we can improve the actual on-ice product in the meantime, well, it’s about time.

1. Change the format. How about introducing Age Rage, with the enthusiastic under-30 guys going up against the crotchety over-30 crowd.

2. Or, stars from the 15 northern-most teams versus stars from the 15 southern-most teams. Let’s get geographical on their ices …

3. Or, the left-handed shot all-stars versus the right-handed shot all-stars.

4. Or, the visor-wearing all-stars versus the all-stars who, for some reason, doesn’t wear visors.

5. Or, the offensive all-stars versus the defensive specialist all-stars.

6. Or … well, you get the point. Change. The. Format.

7. Mic up every player and broadcast the best clips during breaks in the action. To take it a step further, have stretches – while the game is being played – where the only audio is on-ice chatter.

8. Have all the players stay in the same hotel. On the same floor. With a 24-hour reality TV crew on hand.

9. Have AC/DC and Nickelback perform. They’re the only two bands that hockey players listen to. Might as well give them what they want.

10. Instead of a 60-minute game, hold mini-tournaments in which players are grouped based on their junior teams. Oshawa vs. Kladno, Kamloops vs. Boston College, Red Army vs. Modo, etc.

11. More commercials featuring players as fun individuals (remember the NHL’s prank ad last year – “Ovechkin!”) instead of boring automatons.

12. Invite top junior and college players to the skills competition (John Tavares vs. Marty Turco in a shootout drill, followed by Alex Ovechkin vs. Simeon Varlamov).

13. New kills competition: Bodychecking. Imagine Dion Phaneuf vs. Shea Weber in the final, skating full force into a tackling dummy – whoever makes it fly the furthest, wins. Seriously … fans would go nuts.

14. Shootout contest with judges (Denis Savard, Wayne Gretzky, Mike Myers) and mediocre-goalies-turned-VIPs in net (Darren Pang, Garth Snow, Glenn Healy).

15. Fix the ballot nomination process (there was no Patrick Kane or Sergei Gonchar on the ticket this season, despite the fact the list was finalized in early November).

16. Give the players real incentive to win: the MVP gets a car and is exempt from all media requests.

17. Make the skills competition more like the old Showdown in the 1970s – player vs. player instead of conference vs. conference. Crown an overall winner and give him a car, too.

18. A shootout championship, featuring the regular season leaders in shootout goals vs. the goalies who have the best shootout stats.

19. Bigger nets!

20. Small nets!

21. Play 4-on-4 – if not for the entire game, at least the last five minutes of each period.

22. Assign each period a point value. For example, winning the first period is worth one point, the second two points and the third three points. That keeps the game interesting should the score be lopsided entering the third.

23. As a nod to defense – the grossly under-appreciated all-star trait that is grossly over-appreciated in regular season games – award bonus points for blocked shots and takeaways/intercepted passes. Accumulated a pre-determined total and you get a penalty shot as a reward.

24. Go back to the old-style meshing on the nets so the twine actually budges when a goal is scored.

25. Have a celebrity or hockey legend do the PA announcing on goal calls.

26. Dispense with the conference jerseys and go with throwback sweaters. The home team wears a throwback from the host city – this year, you could bring back the old Atlanta Flames look – while the visitors’ shirt is chosen online by the fans. (Our first vote would be for the California Golden Seals).

27. Forget the two-referee system – try the no-referee system. Rarely is there a penalty and it’s not like Jason Spezza is gonna go after Henrik Zetterberg. (Or is he …?)

28. Play the game on international ice. Give those all-stars room to move.

29. The winning conference gets home-ice advantage in the Stanley Cup final.

30. Copy the Young Stars Game. No faceoffs.

31. Two words: More cheerleaders!

32. Two more words: No cheerleaders!

33. Play music during the action.

34. Every penalty, anywhere on the ice, results in a penalty shot.

35. Bring back the glowing puck.

36. Just kidding.

37. After giving up a goal, you get to steal a player from the other team.

38. No bluelines.

39. No icing the puck on penalty kills

40. Like billiards, street basketball or Owen Nolan, if you don’t call your shot, it doesn’t count.

41. Play the game in Europe. Or a non-NHL North American city.

42. Secure sponsors to put up a financial bounty that’s big enough to impress even today’s multi-millionaires. Winning side takes all.

43. Forget trying to cut back on goals; go for broke. Eliminate goalies and make it like novice hockey where each skater takes a two-minute turn standing in the crease.

44. Maximize exposure by making the game a 15-minute contest during halftime at the Super Bowl. Invite Janet Jackson to preside over the ceremonial faceoff. But not Jastin Timberlake. Let’s keep the malfunctions to a minimum.

45. The Sean Avery Exemption: Each conference elects two agitators to liven up the game. The catch, though, is the shift disturbers actually represent the conference they don’t play in, so the guys who see them so often during the regular season – and have a good healthy hate on for them – get a chance to get in an all-star whack.

46. Scrap the Young Guns game; instead, make Kevin Lowe and Brian Burke team captains and have them select the remaining 28 GMs for a good, hate-filled game of 4-on-4. Just keep the shifts short.

47. Play it outdoors.

48. Play it after the season is over.

49. Play it in the pre-season. Fans are hungry for hockey after three long summer months … and anything that spices up the exhibition schedule is welcome.

50. Play it like they did back in the day: an all-star team vs. the previous season’s Stanley Cup champion.

51. Bring back the goalie helmet cam.

52. Have a shootout – everybody shoots – before the game and spot the winning team a 1-0 lead.

53. Borrow an idea from major junior’s Top Prospects Game and put celebrity coaches behind the bench. How about Stephen Harper and George W. Bush – what else are they doing? – on one team and Denis Leary and Pamela Anderson on the other. (Wonder who the fan favorite will be?)

54. Let’s see how talented these “all-stars” really are; intermission should be a talent show, where the players bust out the coolest moves they’ve got that are completely unrelated to hockey. Sure, they can blast slapshots 100 miles an hour, but can any of them juggle … skates?

55. Mandatory trash-talking. Who wouldn’t want to see Ilya Kovalchuk and Jarome Ignla fact-to-face, boxing weight-in style, at a pre-game press conference trading taunts and goal-scorers’ smirks?

56. Ah, what the heck, let’s see what happens if they throw two pucks on the ice instead of the usual boring, old one. Or, maybe one puck in the first period, two in the second and three in the third. Could make for some cool hat tricks …