Normally the NHL has a leg to stand on when it comes to omissions in the All Star ballot. There is a surprise player or two who come out of the gate hot and lead the league in several categories, or the unknown rookie who makes a big splash and comes out of no-where, or the aging veteran who has a career year while he winds down towards retirement. All of these situations are ones where the league office can be excused for its short sightedness. But this year the league really left itself open for criticism by leaving Calgary Flame poster-boy, and rising star player, Jarome Iginla, off the ballot.
When you scan the list of leading scorers a few names jump out at you. Mark Parrish and his twelve goals in thirteen games is a surprise. Iginla’s team mate Craig Conroy, and his sixteen points in fourteen games is a surprise. And perched up at the top of the scoring race is a surprising Jarome Iginla. Surprising? To be sitting at the top of the league scoring race is a bit of a surprise, but his play has been nothing of a surprise to those who have watched the Flames the past several seasons. Make no mistake, Jarome Iginla is not a Mark Parrish, who is benefiting from the addition of centers of the caliber of Alexei Yashin and Michael Peca.
Iginla has actually watched as Calgary’s top two centers have gone down to injury and has still managed to take his game to the next level. He is not a Craig Conroy, a veteran player who is experiencing a spike that will surely lead to an unexpected career year. Jarome Iginla is one of the brightest lights developing in the game today. He hasn’t experienced a massive jump in his numbers to get to this point. Iginla hasn’t been a surprise to those on his team. He’s been a leading scorer, a leader in the dressing room, and a leader in the community for the Calgary Flames for the past four years. He is as far from a surprise as there is when you scan the scoring summaries and consider his history as a player.
Jarome Iginla has always been considered a special player. Iginla was the centerpiece of the deal that sent Joe Nieuwendyk from Calgary to Dallas. When Al Coates made that deal a lot of eyebrows were raised, primarily because of Nieuwendyk’s stature with the Flames, and how few people really knew anything about Iginla. But Coates knew that Iginla was something special. He knew Jarome was about to step onto the world scene and lead Canada to a gold medal at the World Junior Hockey Championships. After that Christmas tournament Iginla would head home to Kamloops, finish his final year of junior hockey with sixty-three goals and one hundred and thirty six points, and lead the Blazers to a Memorial Cup Championship. And just for good measure Iginla would jump into the lineup for the Calgary Flames during the Stanley Cup playoffs and manage a goal and an assist in the two games he would play, in the Flames last appearance in the post season to date. Was this just a good year, or a sign of things to come?
In Iginla’s rookie season he managed twenty-one goals and fifty points. That was good enough to place him second in Calder voting to Bryan Berard of the New York Islanders. His second year in the league, he suffered from an injury that lead to the dreaded sophomore jinx, only scoring thirteen goals and thirty-two points. But that was the last bad year that Jarome Iginla would have for the Flames. He would develop into their go-to guy and most consistent player. As a twenty-one year old Iginla would score twenty-eight goals and fifty-one points. He followed that up with another impressive year where he would light the lamp twenty nine times while adding in thirty four helpers for a total of sixty three points. Finally, in a very tumultuous season for the Flames, one in which most players failed to live up to expectations and the team hit an all time low, Iginla was the one bright spot contributing thirty-one goals and seventy one points. At twenty three years of age Jarome Iginla had put together four twenty goal plus seasons and had developed into one of the best power forwards in the game. He was by far the Flames best player, yet was not receiving the recognition he deserved. So why was it surprising to see Iginla’s name omitted from the All Star ballot? Has he not shown that he deserves to be there?
When you looked at the ballot and the names scattered across the page, it is a representative of most of the teams in the circuit, and the majority of the top players from the respective teams. Well, representation from the large market teams anyway. It should be noted that only six of forty-eight players on the ballot for the North American squad come from what could be considered small market teams. For an example, Adam Deadmarsh, and his back-to-back years of fifteen plus goals is there. I’m not sure how long one player can live off of a thirty-three goal performance from five years ago, but Deadmarsh is taking it to a new extreme. He could be considered the hometown player for this game, but his inclusion on the ballot is embarrassing to say the least. An undeserving Adam Deadmarsh is there, but no Jarome Iginla. Or what about highly touted players that have not lived up to their potential yet? Vincent Lecavalier, the next great francophone player is there. He was only twenty points behind Iginla last season, but Prince Vince is a deserving candidate for selection. How about some of the fossils that have made the ballot? I have to question the addition of Francis and Messier. They’ve been great over the years, but its time they stopped getting the nod based on their tenure. How about the walking wounded? Leclair and Lindros deserve to be on the ballot? Leclair played sixteen games last year. Lindros didn’t play at all. They deserve to be there? What this all seems to be boiling down to is familiarity for the fans, and marketing opportunities.
Now here is the real interesting part of the story. The NHL is continually looking for ways to market itself and make it look more appealing. For a league trying to tap into the African American market, and find a player that this particular demographic can identify with, Iginla is a natural. For a league trying to show off the fact that the small market teams have a hope in competing, Iginla is a lifesaver! But does the NHL brain trust consider the positives of adding such a natural to the ballot? Do they take advantage of the largest marketing opportunity they have during the year to promote the rising stars in the league? No. Instead they trot out the same old tired names (nineteen of the names eligible for selection at forward on the North American team are over the age of thirty). Its no wonder the pundits ask where the next group of star players is going to come from, the NHL doesn’t bother to promote anything but the aging ones it already has!
This issue should not be isolated to just Jarome Iginla. There are many quality players that have not got their opportunity to shine in the All Star game for numerous reasons, subject matter for future columns. Players like Steve Sullivan, Brad Richards, Marc Savard, Fredrick Modin, Shane Doan, and company may never get an opportunity to play in the All Star game because they don’t fit into the mold the NHL has for the mid-season shinny classic. What is disturbing is that this behavior has been going on for a very long time. Players have had to develop a body of work that displays their play at a high level, and in the NHL that high level is the post season. That is unfortunate as integration of the young players just blossoming might be an aid to them to taking their game to the next level, and help balance the playing field within the game and create new marketing opportunities for the league in problem areas. A lot of the young players need those chances to play with the best and learn about the game from the top players. Unfortunately the NHL does not take this view and promotes this “old boys club” mentality for the All Star game. This is a practice that has to stop for the good of the game.
The omission of Iginla should not be viewed as a slight. If anything the fact that Iginla is missing from the ballot should be viewed as a positive for those that loathe the NHL Offices and want to see change. Maybe the guys that compile the ballot will finally get a grip and start to do their job effectively? Maybe these guys will finally stop looking at only the big market teams for talent and start looking at the teams that develop tomorrow’s stars? Maybe they will finally realize that they have a whole series of hidden gems out there in the hinterlands of hockey that the league has forgotten about? Yeah, and maybe intelligent life will be discovered on the surface of the sun! There are few things that you can count on in this world, but one of them is the NHL doing the wrong thing when it comes to promoting the game of hockey. What really hurts is that this opportunity was staring them right in the face.
