He Got Mad Skillz

For those of you who don't get Versus yet, or weren't able to have access to the CBC broadcast of the NHL All-Star Weekend, I will do my best to give you my perspective of the Young Stars game and subsequent skills competition.

First of all, it was much shorter than the all-day festival it used to mean. Sure, fans could partake in their own parties and games around the continent all day and all evening, but the classic game of the retired vets have been thrown away in favor of promoting the young stars in what I could tell looked like a glorified game of shinny.

There was very little defense and with a running clock, people were just skating around, cherry picking, and waiting for that one open ice play that would probably look great on the highlight reels.

"Not really," said Patrick Eaves, a forward from the Senators. "We were kind of joking around out there."

2 out of the 3 Penguins youngstars looked like they wanted to be there. shooting defenseman Ryan Whitney collected a great goal with a shot out in the faceoff circle. Jordan Staal, brother to Eric, got a goal past Peter Budaj

The Skills competition was a little routine but Sid Crosby didn't disappoint in his All-Star debut. He helped the Eastern Stars find a 15-11 win against the Western Stars. Chara scored the hardest slapshot at 100.4 mph. Luckilly, there was no goaltender to stand in the way of that shot.

Sports Illustrated