THE NHL : All-Stars Will Show Off Skills

So you think you’re an NBA fan. Quick, which side won the last league All-Star game, the East or the West?

Or any NBA All-Star game?

How about the Pro Bowl for you football fans. Who won the last one, the NFC or the AFC?

Who knows? Who cares?

All-Star games, with the exception of baseball, are more about show time than winning time. You get a bunch of big names together, let them do their thing and don’t get excited about the score.

It was the NBA that first put that theory into practice. For years, the All-Star teams would get together the day before the game to “practice.” There’s not a lot of strategy to go over when you are sending Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Larry Bird, Julius Erving or any of the other big stars from the mid-’80s out on the floor.

So the players tended to use the time to do what they love best, compare skills. Who could slam it best? Or score the most from outside? Who was the in-your-face ace?

The Saturday practices started to turn into one big game of H-O-R-S-E.

The word spread and soon the fans started showing up in large numbers for the real All-Star show.

The NBA caught on and, starting in 1984, formalized the whole thing. There was a slam-dunk contest. And an old-timers game. A three-point shootout was added later. Television started showing it on Saturdays and All-Star Sunday turned into All-Star weekend.

Five years later, the NHL has taken the hint. With its All-Star game switched from a midweek affair to a Sunday, and the league on network television for the first time in a decade, it was decided to steal some ideas from the NBA.

The result will be the first NHL skills contests, to be held today at the All-Star site, Pittsburgh’s Civic Arena.

There will be an old-timers affair, to be called the Heroes of Hockey game. As Shannon Shay of the NHL office put it, “What would you rather be, an old-timer or a hero?”

Playing will be former stars Frank Mahovlich, Brad Park and Rod Gilbert, among others. Gordie Howe won’t play, nor will Bobby Orr.

The skills competition will pit the Campbell Conference against the Wales Conference in six events with each winning player receiving $2,000.

The events:

--The puck control relay. Players must skate between pylons with the puck, then pass it on to the next member of the team.

--The hardest-shot competition. A speed gun will be used to determine whose shot is the fastest. This event was scheduled for last year’s All-Star game, but had to be canceled when the speed gun wouldn’t work. Presumably, they’ll have extra batteries this year.

--The accuracy contest. Players will shoot pucks at targets made of material designed to break apart upon impact. The players will be operating within a time frame, much as NBA players are required to do in their three-point contest.

--The rapid-fire relay. This involves three players a side shooting five pucks each at the net from various spots on the ice with a goalie defending.

--Speed skating. This is the only pure skating event. No sticks. No pucks. Just a chance to find out who skates the fastest.

--The breakaway relay team event. A little like the rapid-fire competition except players try to score from the spot of their choice, getting six shots each at the goalie.

The two opposing coaches, Terry Crisp of the Calgary Flames for the Campbell and Pat Burns of the Montreal Canadiens for the Wales, will select the competitors for each event, but all the players are required to take part in at least one.

Each coach has some idea of how this grand scheme is actually going to work on ice. League officials recently used the Flames and Canadiens as guinea pigs to work out the inevitable bugs.

The other teams have been sent videotapes to give those players involved some clue as to what is expected of them.

Tickets for the today’s competition are $15. Sunday game tickets are going for $40.

Hockey being the dangerous sport it is, there are plenty of hazards that can keep a player out of action.

But Pittsburgh Penguin defenseman Jim Kyte has added a new one--reading.

Reading?

It happened on a recent trip to Edmonton. Usually the first player in the hotel lobby to await the team bus, Kyte grabbed a handful of newspapers for the ride to Northlands Coliseum.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the bus in front of the hotel, got aboard, turned off his hearing aid--Kyte is deaf--and zeroed in on his reading material.

When the bus stopped an hour later, Kyte got off and found himself at the West Edmonton Mall.

He’d gotten on a city bus.

Minnesota Good-News: Winger Brian Bellows has 31 goals already this season. He had 23 last year.

Minnesota Bad-News: The North Stars are stuck in fourth place in the Norris Division because they have been dreadful away from home. The club is 18-6-1 in the Met Center but 4-18-2 on the road.