Atlanta Thrashers

All-Star Memories

January 30th, 2008 by gmlane

What an unbelievable weekend. My favorite memories, in no particular order…

The Junior All-Star Tournament. Everything about it, from getting to know so many great coaches to hanging out with the kids at both the rinks and at the ASG events. One particularly great memory was after one game, there was some extra time, so both teams agreed to do a shootout. All of the players on both teams got the chance to do their best shootout move. Everyone had a blast.

Red carpet. How can this not be on the list? For a few hours, it felt like I was in Las Angeles on an award night. I could not believe how many people were there, and it felt for a short while like Atlanta was a great hockey town.

Interviews. Part of my duties this weekend was to talk to some NHL alumni (yes, I was forced to). I had the chance to talk to Brad McCrimmon, Darren Eliot, Peter Laviolette, and Rod Gilbert, among others.

The Russian Superstar Showcase. How could you not love the show put on by Ovechkin and Kovalchuk? It started on Saturday night, with Ovechkin’s “batter’s up” move and Kovalchuk dropping to his knees to shoot and bribing the officials. It carried on into Sunday with Ovechkin’s two goals, and Kovalchuk’s flop and stick throw, playing to the crowd after being robbed by Nabokov. The best play I have seen Kovalchuk make in a long time though was setting up Staal on the game tying goal. You could see how badly he wanted a goal, and when he got the puck, every single person in the building thought he was going to shoot. Instead, he passed to Staal, and the game was tied.

The applause for Marc Savard. I loved having Savard in a Thrashers uniform. He is a great guy, and great player, and I always cringe when he gets booed in Blueland. On Sunday, the entire building was cheering for him after he scored the game winner.

Fans from out of town. It was very unique to be able to see all of the jerseys and car flags from other teams.

The crowd. The crowd on Sunday was great. Every single seat filled, it was loud, and the writers took notice of the Kovy chants and the goalie harassments. It came across well, and looked great to everyone watching.

The reactions to the weekend. After three days of reading reactions about the weekend, I still can not find one thing negative about Atlanta, it’s fans, or anything to do with the event. The only negative comments were about non-hitting hockey, or an overall lack of TV interest. Everything else was positive, from the crowd on Sunday to the hosting job done by Atlanta. Hell, the words “hockey” and “town” and “Atlanta” even appeared together in a few sentences.

Getting my picture taken with the Cup. I have seen it multiple times, but had the opportunity to have my picture taken with it on Sunday for the first time.

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