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NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 10, 2010

SCHUYLER BAEHMAN: Hello, everyone. This is Schuyler Baehman from the NHL communications department. We're having this call with Mr. Brendan Shanahan, vice president of business and hockey development at the NHL, and Mr. Mike Ouellet, chief of business affairs for the NHLPA.
Each are going to say a few words in regards to today's announcement about the changes that the NHLPA and the NHL have agreed upon for the 2011 All-Star Weekend.
Just to briefly review, we're going to have a new look to the events for the All-Star Weekend. We're changing the format of it. We are no longer have having an Eastern Conference versus Western Conference format. Instead it's being replaced by a player draft, which will be conducted by the All-Star players themselves that will determine the composition of the rosters for the 2011 NHL All-Star game presented by Discover, as well as Honda SuperSkills.
Mike, why don't I turn it over to you for a few words.
MIKE OUELLET: Thank you. Thanks for everybody joining on the call today.
The Players Association have been working with the league for a few months now on how to reinvigorate the All-Star weekend. We've been getting a lot of input from players. Just to remind you, we have 54 of the best hockey players in the world attending at one venue.
Really no one knows the players' skills and attributes better than the players themselves. We as organizers of the event owe it to them to create the most compelling platform to showcase their skills and to show their personalities and characters to the fans.
That's why we got together with the league to try to look at ways in which we could change the event to make it more appealing to the fans and really more compelling and interesting to the players themselves.
We've got some details that have been released in a media release earlier today, already some interest circulating amongst the blog sphere. So we're here today to answer questions that anybody may have.
I'll turn it over to Brendan, who might have a couple of opening words as well.
Brendan.
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: I agree with Mike. I think if the players are entertained and enthused, the fans are going to be entertained. That was sort of the focus on all of this. We've worked closely with the NHLPA, had great contribution from them as well as speaking directly to players, former players, broadcasters, general managers, people in hockey ops, and the fans themselves, what are the best parts about All-Star weekend and what are the parts where we can improve.
I guess the goal here was to give the game back to the players, put them back in that environment that they are comfortable with and used to. So often at the end of practice players picking teams, dividing teams, even going back to their youth, in their driveway or street, playing road hockey, it's what they've done and what they're used to. It sometimes will bring out the best in them.
That was the concept, to make it fun and entertaining for the players, let that hopefully translate to all of our spectators.
SCHUYLER BAEHMAN: If we could open it up for questioning now.

Q. Brendan, how will the captains be determined?
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: Once we've picked the 42 All-Stars, they will select the captains as well as the alternate captains to join the captain for the picks. It will be the three captains for each team - captain, two assistants - that will be up on stage making the picks. It will be player-driven.

Q. It will be up to those guys to pick the captain?
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: Yes.

Q. I imagine it will be televised. I'm picturing guys lined up, somebody pointing at a guy, or will this be behind closed doors?
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: We're still working on some of those details. The intention is, no, to include everybody and make this a show.
I think that the players that have heard about this concept think it's fun. They're interested to see how the draft shakes down. Do the captains focus on individual talents? Do they focus on the skills competition? On the game? Do they lock up their goaltenders or go after scoring?
Everybody's interested. So we want everyone to be able to see.
MIKE OUELLET: I think it's important, as well, to remember that stories will be told there. It's not simply a matter of choosing the best players for your team. These are the 54 best players in the world. I don't know how you make those selections.
There's certainly going to be something driving each of the captains to filling out their team. I think that's going to be a pretty compelling story, as well, how the guys go about selecting between two of the top right-wingers in the world.

Q. Brendan, when you went out to seek out interest or ideas, you have a lot of ties, a lot of players that you know, what was the general feel of what they thought about what the All-Star Game was? When this idea came about, how did they feel about this?
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: Well, I think that the players I spoke to, their eyes lit up. Not just players, but people in hockey, as Mike was just saying, their eyes sort of dance off and start thinking about potential story lines and strategies, how they would do it themselves.
I had a funny conversation with Luc Robitaille who said, depending on where he got drafted, he'd probably go home and try to get more sleep and try to win the car the next day (laughter).
It's about having fun, making it fun for the players, engaging them. I mean, they're not sitting on the bench being told what to do, being told who's in, what skill, who the head-to-head matchups are. They will be done by the players in real-time.
The players will make their selections for the skills, for instance, and have them go out on the ice. The other team will have an opportunity at that moment to match them with the six players or whatever players they've identified that are going to be in that event.
They're going to identify what players are in each event ahead of time. They're not going to identify the head-to-head matchups.

Q. What was behind canceling the rookie sophomore game? I know the rookies will be a big part of the skills competition, but no game this time around.
MIKE OUELLET: Well, we looked pretty hard at that one. For some people sitting in the stands, it was a very exciting event, and for others who perhaps had different interests other than watching rookies play a scrimmage-type game, it wasn't.
We looked pretty hard at that. We wanted to make sure we were able to continue to showcase the best young stars of the game. So it was pretty much a toss-up.
We landed with the decision to integrate them into the skills competition and to have them become a bigger part of that event rather than putting them on the ice for an event which was just focused on them.
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: In speaking with Hockey Operations, they sometimes had a difficult time filling out the rosters, and most specifically finding goaltenders to play in the game, finding managers that were willing to send their young goaltenders.
We worked hard on this to create an environment for the rookies where we felt this would be more fun for them and give them better exposure and not be sort of second cousins at the All-Star Game, but actually drafted by the captain of the team and sitting next to those guys on the bench and giving them an opportunity, at least in the skills competition, to rub elbows with the NHL All-Stars and sometimes potentially even win points and events for them.
We saw this as an enhancement to the rookie experience.

Q. Brendan, was there any discussion about doing more along the lines of making the game more important instead of more of a traditional thing like baseball has done, giving it more weight?
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: We talked about it briefly. I mean, I can tell you in the All-Star Games that I was lucky enough to play in, it was the last thing on my mind. I just didn't think it would be fair to hockey purists to play something that important that is earned over an entire season, place that sort of importance on the shoulders of players that are at an entertaining All-Star Game.

Q. Brendan, you alluded in your opening remarks when we were all kids on the streets, picking your friend, your sister, whomever, someone last squirming. What always ends up happening is there's two kids standing there at the end. No one wants to be the last one picked. Sounds like there is going to be a great player that has never had to go through that thing that is standing there being the last one picked. Is that going to happen or am I missing something?
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: That's a good question and something on our minds right away.
Ironically, it's probably the players that we've spoken to that are the least sensitive to that. They sort of laugh about it, kid around about it, almost revel in the potential squirming situations.
But at the same time I think that with the NHLPA, we're working on some scenarios where we can soften that a little bit and draw less attention to maybe one last guy standing. We are working on things such as multiple selections at the end, speeding it up.
I can say this: they're still All-Stars and the All-Star players we've polled, it's the last worry on their mind. They're not sensitive guys. They like the fact that this draft, whether you go, as one of them said to me, the guy who goes fifth thinks he should have went third, the guy who went 12th will think he should have gone 10th, so on down the line.
But it is a fair question. Even though the players aren't too concerned about it, it is something we are going to concern ourselves with and make sure it's been softened.
MIKE OUELLET: The one thing that maybe differs from all of us playing and picking teams lined up against the garage is you do have positions you need to fill. If you've got your defensive core all selected, you're not picking another defenseman. There's probably a reason why the last guy being a defenseman you didn't pick.
It's not necessarily just top to bottom based on skill.
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: As Luc Robitaille joked around, he would go home and try to play a little bit harder the next day trying to win the car. They are still all All-Stars, but it's a fair question.

Q. Brendan, in the process of coming up with this idea, did you consider a lot of other scenarios and potentially others that would have given it quite a shake-up?
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: Well, I think all things led to this. There were ideas about bringing it back to the roots, making it that sort of fun pickup game. I said yesterday and I'll say it again: We know what the All-Star Game is and we know what it isn't. We're not trying to make it anything other than a great entertaining and fun event for the players. We're not going to be combing the dressing room, telling them to hit each other. We just want to spark their competitive juices that players exhibit in the smallest of games, whether it's on the plane, in an airport, in the hallways before games playing that kickball that I never got involved in.
I think that the players are inherently competitive, and that really comes out in them when they have fun. So beyond throwing a bunch of sticks at center ice and dividing the game up that way, we thought this was a way to give more ownership to the players and also, like Mike said, tell some stories to maybe get them ready for the skills and the game.

Q. Can you talk about the time frame for putting this together. I know in talking to Jim Rutherford in the last few months, asking about speculated changes in the format, he said he didn't think it would happen this year. He said two weeks ago he was told about this. Talk about the time frame of putting this together.
MIKE OUELLET: Maybe if I can start off.
We've been talking about different concepts for months. I think the prior question was one about different formats that we considered.
It wasn't a matter of looking at five or six different formats to change the event and picking one, it was a building process. We started looking at, as Brendan said, ways to reinvigorate things and give it back to the players, put them back in their youths, trying to get their competitive juices going a little bit more. With that kernel of thought over the summertime, things just built. We tried to keep it as close to home as possible.
We just kept adding features that we felt were more important and more exciting until we got to the point where we are today.

Q. This may seem a little trivial, since the teams will integrate the two conferences, what will they be called if not East and West?
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: I think that's something we're still working on. There are a few details we're still working on. One thing we also wanted to say is that the top six voters are simply that. They're voted by the fans and they're the first six to make the team. Obviously, with this format, you can't guarantee starters. We wanted to mention that, as well.
There's several things that Mike and I and the players, going back to some of the format situations, the structure of the draft show itself, there are still some details that we're ironing out together.

Q. Is it possible we'll see something along the lines of European All-Star games, teams that will be called the names of sponsors?
MIKE OUELLET: I don't think so.

Q. Mike, you may remember the last All-Star Game in MontrÃ©al there was the thing with Nicklas Lidstrom and Datsyuk got fined by the league for showing up late. I'm wondering what the protocol is this time around with player participation and the guidelines for that?
MIKE OUELLET: Again, I don't think it was a fine matter. I think it was a matter of missing a game after the All-Star weekend. But that's something that we're very sensitive to. I think this format will go a long way to enticing guys to show a little bit more interest in the game.
Those were two specific incidents. There were a lot of facts behind the reasons why the guys couldn't make it. As you'll recall, Sidney Crosby was injured and couldn't play, but he attended and waved to the crowd. So there are things like that that happen every now and then.
We're trying to do our best to make sure that the players are excited about the event and will look forward to coming to play.

Q. Are you still going to keep the same format of picking at least one player from every team?
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: It's the plan of Hockey Operations, when they round out the roster, to at least have one player represented, including the rookies, one player represented from each team.

Q. I may have missed this, but how do the coaches factor into this whole thing? Are they going to be drafted, as well?
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: I think that's something we're still working on. I don't know that the coaches will be in the draft. But that's one of the details that we're still working on. They'll probably be picked in the traditional form. Then as far as who is assigned to which team, that's something we're still working out.

Q. Brendan, if you're sitting there still as a player, you can be drafted by one of your peers, how do you think you would feel if you put yourself back in a player standing, I don't know how you're going to do it, but in a line, you're standing there waiting to get picked, how would you feel, what would your competitive juices be like?
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: Well, number one, like I said, I was excited, felt fortunate to be in any All-Star Game. But I think if a suit from the NHL was tapping me on the shoulder, telling me to go out and win an event as opposed to Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux tapping me on the shoulder telling me the team is depending on you, there's a different feel when your peers are asking you to do something for the team. It becomes a little bit more competitive.
I guess that's my answer. Joking around with some of the people and players, I'd probably know each and every single player that went ahead of me in the draft and I'd probably carry that out into the game with me (laughter).

Q. Brendan, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you played in about eight NHL All-Star Games. What were your feelings when the last one was over as to the game itself, what needed to be changed, what was missing? What were your feelings in that regard when you finished your All-Star Games?
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: Well, I had fun in all of them. Again, like I said, I knew it was a fun event. I really enjoyed them. I really felt honored to be there. I knew it didn't have the same feel as a real game or a playoff game or an Olympic game, nor did I ever expect it to.
I truly did feel honored. I was always so pleased and so excited to meet the other All-Stars, just watch them prepare, sort of see competitors in the environment in the dressing room as teammates, guys I hadn't been able to play with before.
Certainly in all sports, actually the contact sports, for people who try to say this isn't like a real game, I think it's time to drop that. If you look at the last couple minutes of the game in MontrÃ©al, a fantastic game. Probably the most exciting one I played in was in Boston when Ray scored late in the game and we were able to hold on to the lead. Guys were giving it their all.
It's not something that I ever walked away from and felt that we needed to apologize for this game. I do sometimes feel defensive when we do apologize for it. I think the game is a great one and one that I was always proud to be a part of.
SCHUYLER BAEHMAN: Thank you, Brendan and Mike.

End of FastScripts

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