Blast from the past
Nobody cares about the all-star game, but maybe they would if it was more like Rendez-vous ’87
The best all-star game that Dale Hawerchuk ever participated in wasn’t technically an all-star game.
There was no skills competition. Players were picked based on merit — not because every team had to be represented. Most importantly, the result meant something.
“It was a real game — not like the all-star game,” Hawerchuk, in an interview with Postmedia, said of playing in Rendez-vous ’87, which featured a team of NHL allstars against the Soviet Union. “It was competitive and hardhitting. There was a lot of physicality in those games. Both teams were playing for keeps.”
Held eight years after the 1979 Challenge Cup between the NHL all-stars and Soviet Union’s national team, the Rendez-vous ’87 was a twogame series held in Quebec City that replaced the 1986-87 season’s all-star game. The NHL team was made up of mostly Canadians, with four Americans, two Swedes and two Finns.
The Soviets were paid $80,000, while the NHLers raised $350,000 for the players’ pension fun. But it was mostly pride on the line.
The NHL won the first game 4-3 and the Soviets won the second game 5-3. Despite the tie, the two-game series was deemed a success in a way that today’s all-star game could only dream of.
“The NHL didn’t win and neither did we,” Soviet head coach Viktor Tikhonov told reporters at the time. “The person that won was hockey itself. Both games were like holidays, like festivals, two of the greatest hockey games you’ll ever see.”
Imagine that: Competitive, hard-hitting hockey — the greatest you’ll ever see.
Maybe it’s time to bring something like that back again.
After all, something needs to change with the all-star format. Whether it’s East versus West, North America versus the World, or a 3-on-3 divisional tournament, the games just don’t mean anything anymore.
Players don’t care who wins the all-star game. Some of them don’t even care to participate anymore.
So rather than fix it by adding a draft or a fan vote or some other gimmick, the league should scrap it and organize a best-on-best tournament between the top eight countries. Call it a condensed version of the World Cup.
You think Alex Ovechkin would bow out if he was playing for Russia rather than the Metropolitan Division? Carey Price might be skipping this year’s all-star game to rest a nagging injury, but would he play through pain if it meant winning another title for Canada?
“There was no pushback,” Hawerchuk said of participating in Rendez-vous ’87. “The guys actually looked forward to it.”
According to Darryl Sittler, it was like that at the 1979 Challenge Cup, which the Soviets won 2-1 in the best-ofthree series.
“There was definitely something on the line,” Sittler said. “We wanted to win. You wanted to show who was the best. We cared about it. It wasn’t like a showcase.”
Before players donned capes and oversized sunglasses to participate in the breakaway challenge and before John Scott was named MVP even though he was playing in the minors, the allstar game used to mean something.
“I remember my first all-star game in Buffalo,” Mike Bossy, who played in the 1979 Challenge Cup, said on Tuesday. “We lost in overtime and the score was 3-2. It was a hard-fought game. They were actual games back then. The wives were invited, but the families weren’t. It’s a completely different atmosphere now. I don’t know what made everybody think all of a sudden that this is a party weekend and it doesn’t matter what the score is.”
Bringing back another World Cup might change that.
The appeal of playing against Russia has faded ever since the fall of the Soviet Union. But with so many stars now hailing from various countries, there might not be a better time to have a best-onbest tournament to determine who really is the best.
The challenge is pulling it off in a week. You would want to
limit it to eight teams, so that means either leaving out a couple of countries or bringing back Team Europe. And you would probably have to do away with the round robin and go right into the quarterfinal.
As for the skills competition, you could keep it around. And you could actually make it mean something.
If Connor McDavid wins the fastest skater, Team Canada gets five points, followed by three for second place and one for third. The country with the most points at the end of the events would begin the World Cup as the No. 1 seed and then play the eighth-seeded team in the quarterfinal.
Would the league want this? Maybe not. After all, the all-star game isn’t a game anymore. It’s an event for sponsors and for a younger demographic that might not care that players are only going through the motions. They just want to be entertained for a couple of days — even if Mitch Marner, Morgan Rielly and Patrik Laine aren’t there.
The owners might feel the same way. Part of the reason why the league doesn’t want to go to the Olympics is because it disrupts the season. The other problem is that while the all-star game is a low-impact, non-competitive game where no one gets hurt, a best-onbest tournament not only drains a player’s energy level, but also risks his safety at a time in the season when an injury could derail a team’s playoff hopes.
Maybe that’s why so many players are bowing out. After all, you can’t get hurt if you don’t play. And there’s no point in playing if it doesn’t mean anything.