Hockey Stars Shine On Worcester…
by neil - January 21, 2009 9:15pm
Let’s hope that Worcester shines back.
The NHL All Star festivities will be taking place this weekend in the hockey hotbed of Montreal, but there is plenty going on right here in Worcester as our fair city will be playing the gracious host to the up and coming stars of the AHL during this weekend’s AHL All Star weekend right here at the DCU Center.
The AHL All Star game will feature tomorrow’s stars of the NHL as Team Canada battles Planet USA. That’s right, those Canadians are so darn good on the ice that they “take on the world” in the AHL All Star format. One team features all Canadian born All Stars versus everyone else. All Star hockey games may be light on hitting but they certainly are heavy on scoring, so if offense is your thing these are great games to watch with plenty of pucks reaching the back of the net. Of the 455 players to participate in the AHL All Star game since 1995 more than 95% of them have gone on to see NHL action, including stars such as Patrice Bergeron, Brad Boyes and Zdeno Chara.
The Worcester squad will be represented by Ryan Vesce suiting up for Planet USA and Derek Joslin taking the ice for Canada, while other notables include ex Boston College star and Portland Pirate sensation Nathan Gerbe, Alexandre Giroux who just last week broke Brett Hull’s scoring record by recording a goal in 15 straight games and Chris Bourque the son of Bruins legend Ray Bourque.
Tickets have sold well but there are still tickets available and with prices of $40 or $32 for admission to 2 days worth of quality hockey action Real Worcester would suggest that some of you locals come on down and help make the DCU a sellout.
The AHL skills competition takes place on Sunday @ 4pm and the All Star game is Monday evening at 7pm. Other festivities include a party at Mechanic’s Hall on Sunday night as well as an All Star Luncheon at noon on Monday honoring Harry Sinden.
All Star weekend at The DCU Center will be beamed into more than 100 million homes through a variety of cable TV networks, both the skills competition and All Star game will be broadcast live on NESN and throughout all of Canada on TSN. The game will also be shown live throughout different regions of the country on station including FoxSportsNet, Time Warner, Comcast and NHL Center ice. The radio broadcast can also be heard locally on WTAG 580 as well as XM Home Ice 204.
I have my ticket and hopefully will have a full recap (or two) of the weekends events. Events of this prominence don’t roll into Worcester every day, so lets make the most of it!
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AHL All Star Classic News