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This year, something legitimately interesting happened. After failed previous attempts to vote in a role player (like the Vote for Rory! campaign a few years back), fans this season succeeded in getting an unlikely player included in the game: fringe NHL’er John Scott, a 6’8” enforcer who is decidedly out of place at such an event.

When the results of the fan voting were announced two weeks back, I wrote that something interesting had finally happened to the most boring event on the NHL calendar:

The presence of Scott is fun. I can’t remember the last time I was interested in any All-Star game storyline, but the presence of the 6’8” enforcer with, say, Drew Doughty and Taylor Hall in a three-on-three contest would be fun to see. Can a depth NHL forward playing as best he can keep pace with a bunch of the game’s best skaters going at half-speed? Will Scott inject a hit or two into a game where physical contact is all but non-existent? The league is constantly searching, and generally failing, to manufacture fun out of the All-Star game. Are fans really to be blamed for injecting some entertaining chaos into the blandest event on the NHL calendar?

It was not to be.

On Friday, John Scott was thrown into a bizarre three-way trade between Arizona, Montreal and Nashville. The Canadiens promptly banished him to the minors. That’s when TSN’s Bob McKenzie—probably the most-respected journalist covering the game—revealed that the league had been putting pressure on Scott to take himself out of the game, pressure which was at odds with the league’s public stance that if voted in by the fans Scott would be there:

McKenzie went even further on TSN 1050:

I think [Scott] feels like there’s no question in his mind—and I, really, it strains the levels of credulity to think otherwise—his inclusion in this trade, in my mind, was absolutely orchestrated to solve the All-Star issue for the league.

It’s unfortunate for Scott, who handled his nomination and the scrutiny accompanying it with rare and commendable grace and didn’t deserve to be shivved on a Friday afternoon by his team. It’s unfortunate for the All-Star game, which loses the one item of genuine interest it had going for it.

This is also the NHL baring its soul to the hockey world, revealing once again the kind of entity that it is. It is selfish, willing to disregard the expressed will of its fans in even the smallest and least important of matters. It is inept; like its ill-fated coach/manager compensation policy or dozens of other rule changes or initiatives over the years, this was a bad decision executed ham-fistedly.