Jan 25 2009
Chara and Ovechkin Highlight Skills Competition
Well it was a crazy night last night as the NHL’s best competed in several different contests which tested their unique skills. The winner of the fastest skater was Andrew Cogliano of the Oilers who completed one lap around in 14.31 seconds. The winner of the accuracy contest needed to be decided in an extra round between Dany Heatley and Evgeni Malkin. Each hit 4 targets on 4 shots and needed to settle the tie with only 4 shots a piece. Malkin would prove victorious, hitting 3 of the 4 targets. The youngstars game was highlighted by Boston’s Blake Wheeler as he got a hat trick in the quick 3 on 3 game, helping the Rookie squad defeat the Sophomores by a score of 9-5.
Zdeno Chara of the Bruins had a tall order in front of him as he needed to beat Shea Weber’s blast of 103.4 mph in the hardest shot competition. Chara’s first shot was clocked at 103.3 mph while his second would set the bar for future competitions. A 105.4 mph shot by Chara would break Al Iafrate’s old record of 105.2 set back in 1993. The Fan Fav Breakaway challenge saw several dazzling and obscure moves by all the players involved, but the eventual winner, Alex Ovechkin, would just put on a show. With time for one more trick left, Ovechkin called for a time out and skated over to Evgeni Malkin who was holding a bag. Inside, AO had some props ready to use, this included a hat with a canadian flag sticking out the top, and a pair of sun glasses. Once he put these on, Ovechkin proceeded to take Malkin’s stick and skate in on goal with 2 sticks. He discarded his preferred right handed stick and scored on his own rebound left handed. The crowd went nuts and he received over 40% of the votes to win the competition. The final competition was the breakaway challenge. This went 7 rounds total and saw Shane Doan, Marc Savard, and Milan Hedjuk battle it out between the goaltenders in the end. Vanek made it to the second round but failed to go any further. The eventual winner would be Shane Doan who scored on 2 similar goals in the final 2 rounds to secure his spot as champion.
Tonight the All Star game will take place at 6pm and should be a fun game to watch. It will air on CBC and Versus I believe so tune in for some good entertainment.
-Sabs Hockey Nut
