It's that time of year again. Time for people to write programming code that will have their home computer cast all-star ballots all day long while they are at work. Time for fans in some NHL city to go hog-wild, voting for some obscure player as a write-in. Time for the ludicrousness that is the NHL All-Star balloting.
At the top of the sidebar of this page, you will see a button displaying the All-Star '08 logo. Click it to get to the on-line ballot. Once again, the League is going away from the scan-tron cards and using the all electronic method of letting its fans vote for their favorite players.
The Carolina Hurricanes have three players on the ballot. Justin Williams and Eric Staal, who were both All-Stars last season, and Cam Ward. According to the N&O, they're not faring well in the polling. Carolina Hurricanes fans are being lazy. As of Tuesday morning, Eric Staal was in 20th place in the Eastern Conference forwards voting with 8746 votes. Compare that to Sidney Crosby with 94118. That's a huge gap. Justin Williams is in 27th place with 4611 votes. Get out there and vote! Vote often! There is no limit to the number of ballots you can cast.
Write-in candidate Mike Richards from the Flyers has 10315 votes, putting him in 17th place.
Neither Rod Brind'Amour (26 points in 21 games) nor Cory Stillman (25 points in 18 games) are on the ballot. They are both off to spectacular starts, but stand no chance of becoming All-Stars. Meahwhile, Maxim Afinogenov from the Sabres is off to a terrible start (6 points in 18 games), and he's on the ballot and getting lots of votes. He's in 10th place with 17782 votes. Nice job by the die-hard Sabre fans.
It's still very early in the balloting process, so a lot could change, but I don't like the fact that Dan Boyle is on the ballot. Dan Boyle, who has played in only 3 games this season, and who is sidelined indefinitely with a second wrist surgery.
It's pretty clear that the names on the ballots are decided before the season even starts. This isn't a very good system. They should either drop the silliness of making the vote 100% from the fans and 100% electronic, or they should make it so there are no names at all. Make it write-ins only.
Meh.
Anyway. Vote. Vote often. Write in Chad LaRose. Write in Rod Brind'Amour. Write in Cory Stillman. Write in Ray Whitney.
Fans who have Verizon Wireless cellphone service can also cast their ballots through their phone. I don't recommend doing that. It takes entirely too long.
Click on my button, or go to NHL.com.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
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1 comment:
I think players and coaches should vote on which players from their team will appear on the all-star ballot. Then maybe you'd see Cory Stillman on the ballot. The way it is now is just like a high school student government election: it's nothing but a popularity contest.
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