Kypreos 1 - Sanity 0

I am not really a fan of the NHL's All Star Game. Having said that, I think the league did a pretty good job of drumming up some interest in this years contest, rolling out a new format, with two captains going through a draft to pick theirteams. This process would obviously leave one guy getting picked last, which when you are drafting from 36 of the best hockey players in the world, probably isn't a big deal. Plus to ease the pain, the last pick would get a car and $20,000 for a charity of their choice. Overall this seems like a no-lose situation.

That is until the captains had the audacity to pick the greatest player, who plays for the greatest franchise in the history of team sports, last. This caused distension from the biggest Leaf fans in Canada – people employed by supposedly unbiased national sports networks. The worst offender was without doubt, Sportsnet's Nick Kypreos. You can read, and watch, his thoughts here (Warning, This link may cause a rational person symptoms which include, but are not limited: confusion, annoyance, anger, befuddlement, and depression. The writers of the blog take no responsibility for these or any other health issues that may arise.)

Personally my favourite part of the article is this:
I know some say no big deal, and to that I say you're right if the last player was Jeff Skinner from the Carolina Hurricanes or Paul Stastny from the Colorado Avalanche, but because it was a Leaf I say you're wrong.

You can not be serious.

First of all, both of these guys have more points, and a better plus/minus than Mr. Kessel. Which is almost definitely what captains Eric Staal and Nik Lidstrom were working of off. Of course we are not the biggest fans of these stats so we can dig a little deeper. Skinner greatly outperform Kessel in terms of RelCorsi (4.7 to -1.9). While Stastny comes in a little lower at -2.2. Skinner and Stastny are both being carried by very high PDOs 1027 and 1021 respective, while Kessel is getting killed by his 959. Looking a little deeper, there probably isn't a ton to choose between these players.

However, Kypreos was not saying it was a big deal because Kessel is better than guys picked before him. He said it was a big deal because Kessel is a Leaf. He goes on to imply that there was some sort of conspiracy between the players drafting to force Kessel down the draft board (this comes up more in the video clip as well). This is, of course, completely insane. Kypreos criticizes Ryan Kesler for not picking his USA Olympic teammate. He suggests Ovechkin was taking extra pleasure in taking pictures of the last person left sitting being a Leaf. The fact that he thinks that other players possibly got together on this is beyond stupid. It's insane!

Overall, I think the coverage this “incident” received is embarrassing for all journalists, especially Kypreos and Sportsnet. This was a fun event, designed for the fans. I think most people that watched, and players that were involved seem to genuinely have some fun with the event. Then Kypreos and Sportsnet ran with this angle, which was at the intellectual level you'd expect to get from a drunk in a Wendel Clark jersey at 2 am. I wish I could say I expected better, but at this point, I really can't.