Shea Noerenberg

Sports Editor

Each season, the National Hockey League has an NHL All-Star Weekend that includes a skills competition and an all-star game.   All-Star Weekend will be held Jan. 28 -29. In the past, players that have been selected to participate in the event are divided into teams by whichever division their regular season team plays in.  However, this years teams will be selected differently.  Eric Staal and Nicklas Lidstrom were selected as the team captains and will participate in a draft of the players selected to the event.

Minnesota fans will be represented well at the event no matter what the outcome of the draft is.  The Minnesota Wild’s Martin Havlat and Brent Burns will head to Raleigh, North Carolina for All-Star Weekend.

Havlat was originally planning on taking a vacation over the break but accepted the offer to play in the All-Star game and canceled his vacation plans.  “I had different plans but I’ll be more than happy to change them,” stated Havlat shortly after he was invited.

There was no question whether Burns would participate or not.  One of the Wild’s top defenseman was selected to his first All-Star game because of his standout play in the first part of the season.  He leads the team’s defense in points with 14 goals and 17 assists.   His work didn’t go un-noticed.  “It’s a great honor, and definitely unexpected,” explained Burns.

Burns and Havlat did not have to face off against each other in the game as they were both drafted by Team Lidstrom in the NHL All-Star Fantasy Draft.  Both players competed in the SuperSkills Challenge.  Burns participated in the Hardest Shot challenge and Havlat participated in the Accuracy Shooting challenge.

Team Lidstrom took on Teal Staal in the All-Star game.  Havlat had three assists in the game and Burns added one to help Team Lidstrom top Team Staal 11-10.