The Fan Fair was great and a fun night with the kiddies for sure, but after dropping the kids off at the in-laws it was time for what generally is the best part of any NHL All Star weekend. The Super Skills competition. This is on top of the usual Canes fan tradition of the pre-game tailgate which we were going to do in the usual grand fashion.

While Mrs. GeekJock headed to the in-laws my best friend (The Redheaded Pharmacist) and I went to the local Target for some necessities. We grabbed some bacon cheddar burgers (my God were these good!), the usual assortment of chips and cookies etc, and of course some ice cold beers. We got to the parking lot and as expected the festivities were nearly in full swing. There were grills a plenty, cornhole boards everywhere, people lining up to see the players and celebs on the red carpet, and tons of Carolina Hurricanes flags. Yes it was time for some fun! Although it was supposed to be in the upper 50’s like more arena parking lots, it was windy as all hell, so I had to park accordingly. It’s not only an art to tailgate but an art to find the right spot which combines using the car for wind protection and still have plenty of sun for warmth. Before you knew it the grill was started, chips and dip out, and beers opened…. Time to relax and soak it all in.

The doors to the RBC center opened about 90 minutes before the event, and since we had great seats to it, we wanted to get in as early as humanly possible to check everything out. There were plenty of people with the same idea so it was a bit packed but kudos go to the RBC staff as everyone got in faster then on a usual Canes game nite, so there was no complaints from me. There will be a whole lot less to say about this day and the next then the fan fair b/c well, it was a skills competition and game. It’s not the fair which is a bit variable so more can be said through my pictures then I can write so you might see less words about the events and more pictures themselves.

The night started with plenty of energy as the players came on the ice for some warm ups and the place was already 80% filled and people were loud and excited to see the players. Then after the opening introductions the guys were ready to get started with events.  The first event being the fastest skater competition. There were main highlights here. The first was the fact that the NHL included a goalie vs goalie matchup this year. We got to see Cam Ward and Tim Thomas pumping hard around the turns to see who was faster and to see who’s team would get the point. The race was fairly even with Ward having a slight edge, until Thomas fell and that gave Ward the fairly easy win. I think even if Thomas didn’t fall I think Ward would have the edge but it was a good thing that Thomas was ok after the slight tumble into the corner. But the biggest matchup was between rookies Taylor Hall and Michael Grabner. They were paired up for the rookie vs rookie skate, and both ended up with the best times and went at it again in the finals for the fastest skater. Grabner would get the best of Hall twice in 2 real fast heats and ends up as this years NHL’s fastest skater.

The next event up was the breakaway competition. This is more of a spectacle then a competition (yeah I know the whole weekend is but bare with me) mainly b/c rather then going to the numbers the fans voted on who would be the best. So you have more showboating and guys being clowns then anything else. Right off the bat we saw some comedic anti

PK Skinner?

cs with OK Subban borrowing teamate Jeff Skinner’s Jersey to get the crowd on his side, and it sure did work. The crowd loved it and was standing laughing and cheering the defenseman on the whole time. We also got to see some great puck on a stick, stick work from guys like Corey Perry, Anze Kopitar and Ovechkin. Natrually not wanting to be out done the goalies got into it a bit as Thomas and M-A FLeury did various lay downs and spin-o-ramas of their own trying to get a few laughs. The whole thing was great and enjoyable, yet started to get a bit stale after a while as each player had 4 chances, and the worst part is, most guys didn’t even manage to score once. So we ended up with the fans voting for Ovie to win it (don’t ask me why) with a repeat of his but end of the stick, stick handling down to change to the right grip then score. Meh, yawn, Corey Perry in my mind deserved to win it with his high flying puck on the stick moves which dazzled a bit more then Ovie, but then again I am an admitted Ovie hater.

The next one up was the accuracy competition. The teams had some great shots but ultimately no one could beat Daniel Sedin’s 4 for 4 in lightning fashion to take home the top honors. Which brought us to the event that seems to change each year, the relay. It’s always a fun watch b/c you end up with a bunch of different guys doing a few different things. From skating hard to shooting one timers to stick handling to accuracy. The first part had one player passing the puck to 3 guys down the same side of the ice for one timers into an open net. The catch was the net had a barrier at the bottom so the guys couldn’t just slide easy shots in to get it done. The other tricky part was the 3rd man was about 6 inches in front of the goal line in the corner for a tough shot. Some of the guys here and there had trouble with these shots but this still showed how amazing the pros are as most guys got all 3 of their goals in pretty quickly. The next part of the relay was precision passing. One player was standing in the neutral zone on the boards, roughly at the penalty box and had to pass the puck into a few nets which were only roughly 1 foot across and about 6inches high. The catch was after the first net, each other one had barriers about 3-4 inches high that you had to pass over to continue to the nets. All the guys again were amazing, with Canes rookie Jamie McBain getting a loud ovation after he netted them all in a real quick time. After completing that the next player up had to go thru a dangling/skating course. There were gatorade bottle signs up 2 by two for most of the offensive zone where the player had to dangle through them left to right and skate around it and back as fast as possible. This lead to the other stick handling part where the player had to stick handle a puck back and forth between a single line of markers at roughly the same length as the previous relay. The final player had to knock down the same four targets as the previous accuracy competition to finally stop the clock. All of the teams were great to watch and no one truly cared in the building who won b/c of how great it was, but ultimately Toew’s group on team Lidstrom took away the points for the fastest time in the relay.

Not much to say about the hardest shot other then, Shea Webber and Big Z Chara have ungodly shots and yeah, Chara won again this time hitting 105.9 MPH. I still don’t want to be in front of either guy’s shot. Webber has that knack of hurting SOMEONE each week who gets hit by it.

The final competition of the night was a last man standing breakaway competition. Each round every player would take a breakaway. Simple, you score, you move on, you don’t, you are eliminated. For a while it looked like Marty St. Louis would come away with the title b/co f his creativity and ability to make the goalies look completely foolish. Yet, he finally missed somehow and Corey Perry came away with the win. Call it a good make up for losing the voting breakaway challenge.

Ultimately it was a great night as the pros showed why they are the best at what they do and showed they could laugh and have a great time doing it. I am going to put some pictures below here of the night as well. Hopefully I can find a good plug in for the blog so I can put a huge amount of pictures ina  gallery for everyone to see a lot more of what we took that night.

Players salute the crowd at the end of the night.

Next up the round up of the 3 part posts, the Game itself! Be Well all!

–GJ

More pics

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