All Star Games are inherently dumb. They are midseason breaks (in most leagues) for all but the very best players in their respective sports. The best players don't get their time off, but aren't really trying very hard either. It's a spectacle that fewer and fewer seem interested in, but still we do it because, well, we like spectacles.
With as dumb as all star events are, to me the most asinine sports arguments are "who got snubbed" questions about these events, or any attempts at practical analysis of them. All star events are dumb. Analysis of the events are dumb. But this site is also dumb, so here we go.
When I was younger, and the appeal of all star events was seeing how the leagues matched up. Sure, players for the Wild and Blues were rivals, but was this rivalry better than, say, the Leafs and Canadiens? Often times yes. The West versus East was fun enough on it's own, but then, the NHL even refined their mid-season showcase.
Instead of a full game, the NHL was able to leverage the structure of a hockey game into a brief 4 team tournament. Instead of playing conference vs conference, they played all four divisions, the two in the west in period 1, the two in the east in period 2, and the championship in period 3. It was a more granular version of the grand experiment that an all star game could be. Which division was the best?
Now, it's all gone. The NHL i like the NBA did, and opted for player draft. It's still the same 4 team mini tournament format, but now it's about finding out who is friend with who, and somehow has even less at stake than all star games had in the past.
I hope they don't get as many viewers, because I don't think a bunch of hockey bros hanging out is particularly interesting. I went to high school in Minnesota, so maybe that's a personal bias, but I'd still rather pit divisions, or even conferences against each other once a gain.
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