It’s Only a Game, but...

This weekend, after a 21-year gap, Los Angeles hosts the National Hockey League’s All-Star game, which gathers the world’s best professionals to celebrate their talents. In a bit of nationalistic nostalgia the festivities will include an exhibition game today involving most of the players from the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” U.S. Olympic team.

At noon Saturday the hockey world’s eyes--and television sets in 175 countries--will be trained on Staples Center as the refreshed format pits the best players from Canada and the United States against the best players from everywhere else in the world. That’s appropriate for a city as diverse as ours and a reflection of both the sport’s changing makeup and many of the names we’ll hear during the coming Olympic competitions.

The NHL, which actually was international from inception, has diversified drastically. At the 1917 founding, a third of the six teams were Canadian; today, 80% of the 30 teams are American, many from warm-climate cities like L.A. and Miami, next year’s All-Star site. A quarter-century ago 97% of league players were Canadian; current competitors come from 22 countries. Barely half are Canadian, 15% are American, a third are from Europe. Many of the league’s games go global on satellite TV, and all are on the Web.

The game comes while a worried world confronts an international terrorism network. In one sense this deft ballet on ice involving rapid men with sticks and a seven-ounce rubber disk is an act of defiance against the xenophobia of the religious fundamentalists who killed thousands of many nationalities Sept. 11. The three-hour contest here pits players of various colors and tongues--Pavol, Teemu and Jaroslav against Jarome, Rob and Paul--with hearty handshakes before and afterward. Viewers will cheer favorites and ooh at the magical moves these men make at 24 miles an hour on thin steel blades.

To be sure, it’s just a game played by a diverse band of well-paid men, a passing metaphor for the wins, losses and less clearly resolved conflicts of ordinary lives. Sunday the players return to their own teams. But at a time like this when the weapons of intolerance have been aimed with awful accuracy at so many ordinary lives and now-shattered assumptions, it’s grand to witness an event with enduring excellence and sportsmanship--and to host it here for a watching world.