Friday, February 06, 2004

Atlanta wins All Star game for 2005, will anyone be there?

We can probably scratch Atlanta off the list of cities looking to relocate in the NHL. The league announced today that the Georgia city will be the host of the All Star weekend in 2005 (providing of course they have any all stars playing hockey by then, hockey Armageddon day approaching fast now).

The Thrashers will host the weekend, the third big league event to grace their city in the last five years. The NBA set up their all star circus in 2003, Baseball was by in 2000. So it's Hockey's turn to dazzle the locals.

Of course all plans are contingent on their actually being hockey played next year. As the league and players association continue to utter doomsday threats and allegations, one wonders if it's worth planning an all star event at all.

At least it should quell the rumours of the Thrashers' being one of the teams in a financial bind, though to my knowledge they were still on the market. The league wouldn't put an all star game in a city that may not be in the league by the time the puck was dropped, would they? Surely they have a sense of long term planning in the Bettman empire!

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