We all know that all of the four major North American sports have All-Star games at some point during their seasons. Two of those four leagues are having their games today, as the NHL All-Star game will air today at 3 PM Central time on Versus, and the NFL Pro Bowl will be on FOX starting at 6 PM Central time.
I'll be honest with you, folks. . .I have way, way more interest in the NHL game this year than I have in the Pro Bowl. NFL players seemingly treat the Pro Bowl as a joke, with excuses not to go running rampant and less than 100% effort being put forth on the field. It's nice for players to get the honor and everything, I guess, but I've lost count of the number of "Pro Bowlers" there are this year, with all the replacements and everything else.
The NHL, on the other hand, has added a little bit of interest to their All-Star Game. . .which, generally, doesn't feature any defense, but is still usually pretty action-filled. . .with a new team selection format. This year's NHL All-Stars weren't named to a particular squad, but instead two players (Eric Staal and Nicklas Lidstrom) were named as captains, and they selected their teams from a pool of all of the All-Stars, playground style.
Honestly, I think all of these All-Star Games should adopt the same format. I know that, at first blush, the NFL Pro Bowl might not readily lend itself to such a format, what with football being the sort of team sport it is and everything, but really. . .how much "practice" goes into the Pro Bowl? A week or so? There isn't going to be any sort of chemistry built along offensive lines or between quarterbacks and receivers or anything like that anyway, so it's really not as big a deal as it might sound like. But I think the team selection process would really add quite a bit to the All-Star games in all of the major sports.
But, I for one am not terribly intrigued by the NFL Pro Bowl. I never really have been, to be honest. How about you folks out there? Are you going to be watching the Pro Bowl this evening?
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