The NHL All Star game needs a reformat.
Yes, I know they just started this format but after watching the game on the weekend it became very clear that it is just not working.
Were there some fun moments?
Sure, but overall there was just a whole lot of players giving very little effort at times.
Fans paid good money for those tickets and it is a shame that the players could not reward them with some hard work.
According to nhl.com tickets ranged in price from $235 for 300 level to $1,050 for glass seats.
Could you imagine going to see a hockey game or concert and paying that much money, keeping in mind that that is American and they are actually closer to $306 - $1,369, and the act you went to see barely tried?
You would feel like it was such a waste of money.
Now the 3-on-3 format is not really the problem because I will admit that as the tournament went along the quality of the hockey did improve but that also came with a $1 million grand prize for the winning team.
So how do we get the players to try harder at the start?
Why not let them compete for money right off the hop?
Sure roughly $90,000 once it is split up is not much to an NHLer but it is obviously worth enough bragging rights that they put more effort in to win it.
So put money up for the first game and whichever team wins those players get to donate that money to a charity of their choosing.
I say put money up for grabs in each of the three games and hopefully that will be enough incentive for the players to play hard for the fans who paid their hard earned money to go watch them play.
Sure, I hear the argument that they do not try as hard because they do not want to get hurt and while I do understand that, if they were really that worried about getting hurt you would not see players like Alex Ovechkin blocking a shot during the championship final.
We seem to forget that these are professional players and there is a lot of open ice.
I have no doubts that they could skate much harder than they do now and would be more than capable of avoiding injury.
It is time we held these players to a higher standard and expected them to give an effort for us.
And if they do not do it, do not give them the four-day break.
Then they would not have to play as many games in such a tight window during the season.
