All-Stars will play in Czechia

PRAGUE – If he gets picked for the game, all eyes during the EURO League All-Star Game for Season 18 in Prague will be on Prague’s number 18, Robert Thomas.

Last season in the All-Star Game in Dublin, Thomas scored five goals and had 2 assists and was voted MVP as the Southern Conference beat the Northern Conference 14-3. The South has won 3 of the last 4 all-star games but still trail in the all-time series 10-6.

Thomas is Prague’s leading scorer but there are many right wings in the conference that could get more votes than him when general managers fill out their ballots in the next week. The GMs already decided Thomas’ city should host this year’s edition of the annual all-star weekend.

Voting will start this weekend and the game will be held the weekend after Christmas (Dec. 27-28).

To see the updated All-Star Guide and Record Book, hover your cursor over the “Record Book” link at the top of this page. Or click here.

Here is a list of the host cities and results of the first 16 all-star games.

Season 1 – Bratislava, Northern Conference won 7-6
Season 2 – London, North 8-4
Season 3 – Copenhagen, North 8-4
Season 4 – Paris, North 11-6
Season 5 – Helsinki (outdoors), South 10-3
Season 6 – Stockholm, North 12-7
Season 7 – Lisbon, North 11-10
Season 8 – Moscow, South 8-6
Season 9 – Minsk, South 11-6
Season 10 – Berlin, North 16-3
Season 11 – Oslo (outdoors), North 12-11
Season 12 – No game, although teams were selected in a vote of GMs
Season 13 – Zurich, North 12-10
Season 14 – Amsterdam, South 7-6 (OT)
Season 15 – Hanover, North 9-4
Season 16 – Edinburgh, South 10-4
Season 17 – Dublin, South 14-3

How is voting conducted?

In addition to the location for the game, the players who make up the two teams will be decided by votes of the general managers. In short, GMs should start paying attention to who are the best and most-deserving players in the league.

Rules will be identical to the rules of previous games. Websim Hockey’s polls will be used to select the host city, but NOT to choose the team rosters for three reasons:

There is no way to tell if GMs voted for their own players.
Also, if the instructions say “Vote for 3 at each position,” and someone votes for 4 or 5 or 6, there is no way to go back to that GM to have him correct the vote (Limiting the vote to 1 per position would probably not fill out a lineup if there is one clear choice.)
And there is no way to have weighted voting, for example, 5 points for your first choice, 3 for your second and 1 for your third.

So the voting procedure will be the same as it was last season. Each GM will receive a ballot in the form of a Google survey in their personal e-mail accounts. GMs will simply vote for each position and click send. To prevent a GM from stuffing the ballot boxes and stealing the election, each GM will receive a password in a private message from the commissioner. Your ballot will ask you to type in that password at the end. That way, one guy (Guybrush Threepwood, for example) can’t fill out 25 ballots, claiming to be a different GM each time.

Players on the ballot are listed in no particular order. GMs can write in anyone who is not on the ballot. You can go back and change your votes at anytime before the Dec. 20 deadline.

Here’s how the all-star event will work:

Date: The event will be held the weekend of Dec. 27 and 28.

Rosters: Voting on all positions will start this week. Nominees and statistics will be posted on the blog https://eurohockeyleague.wordpress.com. The post will pretty much be what you see when you call up Websim’s Statistics page, only divided by conference and position. General managers will have until Dec. 20 to vote for their top 5 at each position (top 8 defensemen) in each conference. Up to five players at each forward position will be selected for each conference team. 8 defensemen and 3 goalies will also be selected. GMs may not vote for their own players.

An announcement of the final all-star roster will be made within 3 days after voting closes. All-stars with the highest LD rating will be considered in the naming of captains for the squads. The commissioner will add a player from any team which did not place a player on the team so that every team gets some representation in the game.

Coaches: The coaches for each conference team will be named by a panel of one league official and will be announced soon.

Skills competition: The EURO’s fastest skater, hardest shot, and most accurate shooter will be decided the day before the all-star game. Season 17 winners were:

Fastest Skater: Ethan Bear, Kosice (he also won the year before when he played for Madrid)
Hardest Shot: Zach Werenski, Oslo
Accuracy: Jack Eichel, Stockholm

The commissioner will take a player from each pro team roster for each of the 3 competitions. The player with the highest (SP) rating will be entered in the fastest skater contest; the player with the highest (ST+SHO) will vie for hardest shot; and the highest (SHO+PA+FI) will compete for most accurate shooter. Since chance is involved in any game, their totals will be multiplied by a random number between 95 and 100 to determine the outcomes. Winners get no money, but they do get glory and their names in the paper.

Special Event: To be announced tomorrow.

The game itself: The commissioner will use the all-stars’ stats from the regular season games played closest to the all-star game to produce a box score. Total plus-minus and the goalies’ performances will be used to determine the winner of the game. It won’t be an exact science thing, but whichever conference’s all-stars perform better that weekend in their EURO League games will win the game. Goal scorers and assist getters from the regular season games will be thrown onto a spreadsheet and a random number generator will determine who scored and assisted in the all-star game. If a player scores a hat trick in their regular season game, he would have his name appear on the spreadsheet 4 times. It’s possible an all-star who didn’t score in a week could score in the all-star game.

Player of the game: The commissioner will select a player of the game. He will win a car made by a European car manufacturer and his photo will appear in the game story.