Jad Abumrad

Well, you know what industry we're in?

We're in the hockey industry.

And as you know, the hockey industry is about making money, making new fans, turning heads.

Okay, so this is November 2015, just a few months before the NHL's, you know, big mid-season spectacle.

Welcome to Amelie Arena!

The all-star game.

There is a sense that I have about this game that's worrisome.

So, this year, yet again, the NHL, for the 100th time in the last 15 years, was changing the format of the All-Star Game.

Hockey's typically five on five.

Three on three, however, is supposed to be like, you know, way more action, a lot more scoring, a lot more fun.

But for Greg and Jeff, who are, you know, these hockey purists, they're like, yet again, the NHL is just changing things up to get more eyeballs on this game that, by this point, has just become a watered-down, half-speed joke of a game.

So the two of them, as many diehard hockey traditionalists do, go off on the NHL.

And eventually that leads them to talk about the other, what they see as the other really dumb thing about that year's All-Star game.

Fan voting.

Fan voting has long been a part of the game.

As a kid, there was nothing else better than grabbing a little punch card at a game and knocking out the little circles and trying to grab like 30 of them.

to make sure that, you know, Kirk Muller gets a spot in the All-Star game or whatever.

But over the years, the NHL had started reducing the number of players that could get voted in.

One year, they were even accused of turning off the vote when they didn't like where it was headed.

And anyway, this year, the NHL had limited the vote so much that the fans could only vote in four players, a captain for each division, the Pacific, the Central, the Atlantic, the Metropolitan.