FanHouse Scott Mellanby

A crucial offseason, possibly the most significant in franchise history, is underway for the Minnesota Wild. Head coach Jacques Lemaire and general manager Doug Risebrough, the only people to ever hold those positions for the Wild, are both gone.

The process of finding a new general manager took precedent for owner Craig Leipold, and he made sure to take his time and get things right. After a series of interviews, and a list of candidates that included high-profile broadcaster Pierre McGuire, Leipold has settled on a front-office veteran with a track record of helping build winning teams.

Unlike my esteemed colleague, Kevin Schultz, I found the YoungStars game to be the least interesting aspect of yesterday's All-Star festivities. Not that I don't enjoy seeing today's youngest stars display their l33t skills, but, as my girlfriend pointed out, the YoungStars game was basically 'like a weak game of basketball'.

Up and down ... no defense ... no young goalies (?) ...

Now, everyone and their mother has tossed out ideas how to make the All-Star Game more interesting. Here is my idea for the YoungStars game: Bring in the geezers!

Want to make the game more competitive? How about pitting the best young players against some high-powered NHL alumni? I'm not talking about the ancients like Bobby Hull, but recently retired players like Mark Messier, Scott Mellanby, and John Vanbiesbrouck.

I don't know why the NHL is so afraid of showing its past, but wouldn't you enjoy seeing some of your old favorites lace them up? Don't you think the young stars would love to face the likes of Messier and Ray Bourque?

I think the game, itself, would be more competitive under this format. The alumni would love to show the young whippersnappers how its done, and that they aren't completely over the hill, while the youngsters wouldn't want to look bad against a bunch of fossils.

I don't expect the NHL has ever considered such an idea, but I feel that it would give the NHL a boost in marketing the game, and make the pre-All-Star game festivities that much more interesting.

After months of in-fighting, the NHL Players Associating finally got around to hiring a replacement for the oft-colluding Ted Saskin.

Ironically, the man they hired, Paul Kelly, is the man who once helped take down former PA head Alan Eagleson.

"I really do believe that it's a new day. I want it to be a positive relationship between the NHL Players' Association and the league. I think we owe it to the fans to put that lockout/work stoppage and all of those issues behind us."

"To focus on the game, win back our traditional fans, develop new young fans, do a better job of marketing our young stars of the game, do a better job of the TV coverage and the media attention particularly down in the United States."

A lot of the usual goody-talk, mixed in with a dash of optimism. How the PA, itself, markets the players is beyond me, other than to make them more readily available to advertisers. The marketing should be left up to the NHL to handle, with the NHLPA giving full co-operating for anything that doesn't involve putting Sidney Crosby in a chicken suit.

Perhaps the PA will finally get a leader than can cater to the best wishes of the players, AND not be a puppet for the league, AND not piss off Bettman and company so much that they want to spite the union.

Perhaps.

In other positive PA news, it appears that Eric "The Big E-go" Lindros has basically accepted that his playing days are over and is the most likely candidate to become the NHLPA ombudsman, the newly created principal liaison between the players and their leader.

For a union that has had many issues with their management going off and doing their own thing, this is a great first step into assuring accountability. While we may think of NHL players as spoiled millionaires, they still deserve to be done right by the union that is supposed to be working FOR them.