The NHL All-Star Fantasy Draft: Picking "My Boy"

I hate the All Star game. I actually hate all All Star games and their associated skill competitions and young gun games and home run derbies and pro-am softball games and groupie jock sniffing contests. They are all forced and lame and boring.

I try to watch the NHL All Star game every year. It's all offense! It's all skill! It's all excitement!

It's all boring.

But this new fantasy draft thing I thought would be interesting. Let's see who the players really want to play with. Let's see who has respect around the league. Let's see if someone dick-moves the fantasy draft by taking all the goalies and then forcing the other guy into a What Now, Dickwad? situation.

Well, of course some of that got No Fun Leagued out of the process by introducing too many rules while some of those questions got answered (those rumors you hear about how no one likes Phil Kessel? Con-firmed.) and some were, well, over-answered.

The question of whether guys would have to pick players from their own teams early was quickly answered and then confirmed over and over. But what I did not anticipate was that NHL players apparently want to call each other "my boy" more than any gay porn actor ever has (or so I've heard. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Not that  know exactly what I'm excusing here.).

In fact, it was so over-used that I had no choice but to go back and track the My Boy useage of the night. Unfortunately the NHL did not 'mic up' the players for the post-draft party at the bar, where I'm sure grown men called each other their boys about one million more times. Except for Phil Kessel, who is, apparently, no one's boy except his momma's.

Here is your transcript:

Eric Staal: "I gotta pick my boy. . . . My boy, Cam Ward."

(I think that's two 'my boy' mentions, one to his assistant captains and one on mic. Count it how you want.)

_____

Nicklas Lidstrom: (to Patrick Kane) "You wanna take his boy?"

Patrick Kane: (to Martin St. Louis) "You wanna take your boy?"

(St. Louis' boy, Steven Stamkos, is selected)

_____

Patrick Kane: "With our next pick, I'm gonna take my boy, the Norris Trophy winner, Duncan Keith."

James Duthie: (to Jonathan Toews) ". . . When Kaner started to say, 'My boy. . . ' did you start to stand up?"

_____

Ryan Kesler: "With pick number 5, I'm going to take my boy, Daniel Sedin. . . ."

_____

Martin St. Louis: (to Lidstrom) "You do it, you do it. It's your boy."

(Lidstrom selects Henrik Sedin)

_____

Mike Green: "We pre-thought this. . . ."

(I realize he didn't say "my boy" when selecting Rick Nash, but, um, how the shit did these brainiacs pre-think soemthing?)

_____

Martin St. Louis: ". . . my boy, from the Vermont Catamounts, Timmy Thomas."

_____

David Backes: (this may be paraphrased) "I fucking rule all and I therefore rule all of you. I drink beer and play hockey hard. I'll buy you a beer after, but I might fucking destroy you during. It's up to you how you react to that. I'm not going last in this draft. That is all. Move along."

_____

Nicklas Lidstrom: (to Martin St. Louis) "We gotta take him. Take your boy."

(St. Louis selects Brad Richards.)

_____

(as the rookie teams are getting seated in front of the AS teams, I'm pretty sure someone just called PK Subban 'my boy' and caught a double take look for it. I assume he quickly apologized because PK Subban is clearly bad ass.)

_____

Ryan Kesler: "None of us feel like tussling with this guy, so we're gonna take David Backes from the St. Louis Blues."

(And Ryan Kesler avoids getting his ass handed to him on a plate for one more weekend. Kelly Backes, on the other hand, demands that Kesler be destroyed. KELLY BACKES IS A SAINT!)

And clearly, no one calls David Backes his 'boy' because David Backes is all that is man.

_____

Summary:

Eric Staal's boy: Cam Ward

Martin St. Louis' boys: Steven Stamkos, Brad Richards, Tim Thomas

Patrick Kane's boy: Duncan Keith

Ryan Kesler's boy: Daniel Sedin

Nicklas Lidstrom's boy: Henrik Sedin

Not Patrick Kane's boy: Jonathan Toews

Not anyone's boy: PK Subban, you cracker motherfuckers

_____

Boys by Nationality:

Canada: 4

Sweden: 2

USA: 1