Water Cooler Topic #6
The youngest stars in the universe
This year’s NHL All-Star Game in Dallas featured the debut of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Sidney Crosby. The 19-year-old phenom became the youngest player to ever score 100 points in a season last year, and this season he set the record by receiving over 825,000 votes, the most since voting began in 1986.

Adam’s take: Talk about a “new NHL.” After nearly two years since the last NHL All-Star Game, the East roster features five first-time starters, including Crosby and Washington’s Alexander Ovechkin. On the ice, the NHL is clearly in good hands, as the game's two brightest young stars, Crosby and Ovechkin, are one and three, respectively, in scoring. With the product arguably at an all-time high, the NHL needs to stop messing around with new jerseys and bizarre camera technologies, and get the game on a channel that people can actually find on their cable boxes. Versus is for bull-riding and bike races, not our blessed Zambonis.

Pete's take: The NHL All-Star Weekend was actually on a Tuesday and Wednesday this year. Apparently, the Canadian calendar is different than the one we use in the States. I was a little upset by the obvious smear campaign and ballot-stuffing trick organized by the NHL that kept Rory Fitzgerald off the West’s roster. The third-line defenseman on the Canucks should have gotten a few shifts in Wednesday night’s game. It would have been both fun and good publicity for the league. Of course, I -- like 33 million other Americans -- was watching American Idol instead of the game. Who needs Sidney Crosby when you’ve got Ryan Seacrest, Randy Jackson and countless bad versions of Alicia Keys’ “Fallin’”?

Peter Schrager is a sports/pop culture columnist for FoxSports.com. He enjoys unsweetened iced tea, French onion soup and clips of Shawn Bradley getting dunked on.

Adam Weinberg is a freelance writer, screenwriter and a recent graduate of the University of Maryland. He was once thrown out of an NHL game for throwing Chap Stick on the ice.

< < Previous