What a weekend. We learnt that the NHL's All-Star Game has a friend in Carolina, and that the fantasy-draft concept has a friend in hockey fans all over.
But the game itself - an 11-10 victory for Team Lidstrom over Team Staal - was pretty typical All-Star fare - no defence and a complete lack of physicality.
It was "fun", a pond-hockey game of the highest degree. The players did ramp up the intensity - from 0 to 1 - in the final minutes of the third period when the outcome was still in doubt.
It was just a game, but professional athletes are professional athletes, and they all wanted the bragging rights, just not badly enough to risk injury in a corporate schmooze-fest disguised as a hockey contest.
The game, and the weekend, was all about engaging the fans, spreading the gospel of puck, and revealing some of the personalities underneath the helmets, and to that end, it was an unqualified success. It started on Friday night with the draft, as the captains Eric Staal - who also wears the "C" for the hosts Carolina Hurricanes - and Nicklas Lidstrom picked teams from the pool of all-stars.
It was a nod to the grassroots of the game, to road hockey and pond hockey and the way the rest of us usually pick teams. The skills event on Saturday was more of the same, as players showed off tricks they would never do in a game, and had the chance to flash a few smiles as well.
It hit all the right notes, as did the entire weekend, and the hockey world smiled with them.
