Next up, did you know Jiri Slegr can cook? Oh yes, he can! And if you like garlic, well, Greg at Hockey Rants has Jiri Slegr’s Garlic Soup recipe, so stockpile some breath mints and give it a taste test. (No word on Slegr’s future at The Food Network. And I personally haven’t tried the soup, so proceed at your own risk, hockey fans…)

Looking closer at the All Star game, the Battle of Alberta declares it to be “fun and irrelevant” which sounds about right. But there’s at least one positive thing about that annual game of hockey’s superheroes—namely marketing. Unfortunately, the Canucks Hockey Blog is still ticked off about that little Rory Fitzpatrick snafu, and isn’t too excited for the game. But he does like the new jerseys—what does everyone else think?

So, what do you do if your name is Alexander Ovechkin and you want a bag of potato chips? Well, you kick the living crap out of a snack dispenser, that’s what you do. And then you get the owner of the Washington Capitals to help you out. Eyes on the Prize has the film footage with Ted Leonsis on his knees before Ovechkin, trying to fetch him a snack.

As Ted himself said in the out-takes of filming this thing, “I have a feeling this is a position I’m going to be in a lot with Alex…” (*note: you can watch the “making of” feature for that advertisement here. Link opens to Windows Media Player.)

But it’s not all superstars and billionaires at the All Star Game… there’s a whole lot of mascots there, too. And yes, even hockey mascots have a blog these days. Thanks to John & Rebecca at The Crazy Canucks, I’ve been introduced to the musings of Fin, Vancouver’s own blogging whale:

“We had a slow day for the most part and then later in the afternoon we had our big street hockey game. It was East versus West and it was a blast. Initially the plan was to have lines but try telling that to a bunch of characters like us. Needless to say, it was mass chaos with all of us trying to score goals or stop them - unsuccessfully I might add. The fans enjoyed themselves getting a laugh at a penguin falling over and being dog-piled on or seeing a shark high-five a whale after sandwiching a sabretooth! In the end, the East apparently won, but I think we scored more goals then they did. The officiating was a little suspect and there should have been way more hooking and holding penalties called.”

It seems that even sea mammals can’t stop bitching about the officiating.

Let me finish it off away from the blogs with some brilliant (*cough*) Q&A work by the media attending the All Star events in Dallas this week. First victim, Sidney Crosby:

Q. Sidney, they’re calling you the golden boy of the new NHL. How do you like being the cat’s meow of all things stick and puck?
SIDNEY CROSBY: I can’t answer that one seriously.

And he tries to, he really does, but how the hell do you answer a question like that? And Alexander Ovechkin got his own turn at media cross-examination:

Q. Who do you think is the MVP of the league is so far this year?
ALEX OVECHKIN: Crosby.

Hardball stuff it’s not, and that’s fine. But I guarantee you a hockey blogger would’ve at least asked if AO had managed to eat anything out of that snack dispenser—and if the billionaire paid for it.

Inquiring minds want to know…