All-Star Breakaway Farce?

So the All-Star game's skills competition has come to a close and it left me with a bitter/sweet feeling. Overall I'd say that the event itself was pretty successful. I will admit to skipping out on the Youngstars game, but the skills competitions is what really gets me watching. The fastest skater competition returned to its normal lap around rink which was a good decision on the league's part. last years straightaway didn't really give me much of a feel for who the fastest skater was. The whipping around the corners is what really shows who's the faster skater. The hardest shot and most accurate shots are always staples in the competition and as usual provided their normal levels of entertainment. The big shock waws Shea Weber, who's slowly making more of a name for himself around the league, in the fact that he was second in the Hardest Shot competition. Zdeno Chara is hard to bet against seeing how, on leverage alone, he holds a huge advantage over the other players. Evgeni Malkin, known for not only his scoring ability but his sudden surge in playmaking, showed why he's a dangerous player with the puck on his stick by going 4 for 4 in the accuracy challenge. A surprise for this Senators fan was seeing Dany Heatley show off his accuracy. hearing him go 3 for 8 in Ottawa's Sens Skills showcase definitely left room for doubting the sniper. Going 4 for 4 as well, it makes you wonder why he doesn't wrist the puck more instead of his trademark huge wind up but that's a discussion for another day. If it seems like I'm avoiding the whole breakaway challenge it's because I am. The whole event seemed....Hokey. Aside from making the players look bad in the way that they almost failed every attempt, news of the random goalie being brought in to basically make a fool of himself was definitely not a smart move on the league. It's tough being the goalie in the competition. Stop the puck and you're almost boo'ed because you did your job; let it in and you look like a fool because you probably let in the most gimmicky goal in your life. I understand that goalies would prefer not to look like the jerks in such a competition but to bring in a junior goalie and tell him not to stop the puck seems a little stupid in my honest opinion. Sadly, in attempting to not save the puck, the players hit him so many times you'd think he was doing it on purpose. You almost feel bad for the players. Here they are trying to make this dazzling move and the goalie stands there like his a cardboard cut-out. If the goalie doesn't move, it kind of makes it hard to really make a move worth watching because the guy in front of you ins't moving in a manner that fits a goalie. No offense to Patrick Kane and Steven Stamkos but the whole slide on your belly and pass the puck from your glove to stick shaft and in isn't all that impressive to me. The highlights for me were Martin St. Louis' fake lacross move and Ryan Getzlaf's around the net lacross flick. Kudos to Ovechkin for the whole hat and glasses gimmick. At least there's someone who knew he was going to make a fool of himself in the competition and ran with it. But of all the competitions, the Elimination Shootout was the best for me. This is exactly what the Breakaway Challenge should have been. It was game related and showed off some of the skills the league's All-Stars and gave some real entertainment (Marc Savard's freebie by Tim Thomas aside). Seeing some of the stars dangle is the type of skill I want to see. A suggestion to the league for next year: Either remove the Breakaway Challenge or take a real hard look at what you're doing for it. If the Breakaway Challenge is to remain, the rules should be the player has to make a deke, no straight shot. You get three attempts in rounds and there's a goalie who's actually going to move in the net. Oh wait, that sounds awfully alot like the Elimination Breakaway minus the dekeing rule...Moral of the story, in its second year, it was a bust...Again.