{"id":2402,"date":"2002-02-01T19:42:57","date_gmt":"2002-02-01T18:42:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/?p=2402"},"modified":"2015-05-15T13:21:23","modified_gmt":"2015-05-15T11:21:23","slug":"hockey-goes-hollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/2002\/02\/hockey-goes-hollywood\/","title":{"rendered":"Hockey Goes Hollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I found this today when I was looking for images of the game&#8230; and wanted to add a side note. Brendan did get to be a leftwinger on the same line as Phil Esposito and Jari Kurri<\/p>\n<p>From the LA Times:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nBefore the NHL All-Star game Feb. 2, celebrities and fans will get their own chance to compete.<\/p>\n<p>By JON MATSUMOTO, Special to The Times<br \/>\nThursday, January 24, 2002<\/p>\n<p>In the trendy surf &#8216;n&#8217; sun environment of Los Angeles, the mention of puck can just as easily bring to mind Wolfgang as it does a vulcanized rubber disc sliding across the ice.<br \/>\nBut next week, the National Hockey League will attempt to temporarily turn Hollywood into Hockeywood with a series of special events preceding its All-Star game on Feb. 2 at Staples Center.<br \/>\nThe last time the NHL&#8217;s greatest players assembled in Los Angeles&#8211;1981&#8211;the league&#8217;s itinerant All-Star game was just that&#8211;an All-Star game. Since then, this annual convergence of the world&#8217;s best stick-wielding talent on ice has evolved into a multi-day festivity that also includes a slew of fan-friendly activities.<br \/>\nAnd the savvy marketers at the NHL promise that this year&#8217;s All-Star bash will represent its glitziest and hippest midseason celebration to date.<br \/>\n&#8220;We&#8217;re taking a different approach this year and making everything more of an entertainment show because we will be in the entertainment capital,&#8221; said Greta Palmer, manager of events and entertainment for the NHL. &#8220;We want to offer something to fans of the sport and future fans of the sport by offering both hockey and entertainment.&#8221;<br \/>\nA celebrity hockey game, performances by local rock bands and appearances by a number of non-hockey playing celebrities will help bring a distinct L.A. feel to the whole shebang, which runs Wednesday through next Saturday (Feb. 2).<br \/>\nThe benefit celebrity game will take place at Staples Center on Wednesday night. Film producer Jerry Bruckheimer (&#8220;Black Hawk Down&#8221; and &#8220;Pearl Harbor&#8221;) will lead a squad of hyped-up entertainers against a team captained by television creator-writer David E. Kelley (&#8220;Ally McBeal,&#8221; &#8220;The Practice&#8221; and &#8220;Boston Public&#8221;). Cuba Gooding Jr., Kiefer Sutherland, Alex Trebek and Brendan Fehr will be among the celebrities skating for Bruckheimer&#8217;s Bad Boys. Denis Leary, Jason Priestley, Scott Wolf and Joshua Jackson will be among the stars lining up for Kelley&#8217;s Heroes. The skill level of both teams will be greatly enhanced by the participation of ex-NHL greats such as Phil Esposito, Jari Kurri and Dave Taylor.<br \/>\n&#8220;I never in a million years thought I would get a chance to skate with Phil Esposito and Jari Kurri,&#8221; says Fehr, an actor on the UPN television drama &#8220;Roswell.&#8221; &#8220;Being from Canada, this is going to be one of the most exciting moments of my life. If I skate on a line with Jari [who teamed with Wayne Gretzky for many years in Edmonton], I am going to have big shoes to fill in feeding him those passes!&#8221;<br \/>\nTaking a Slap Shot at Contests, Prizes<br \/>\nTaking place at the Los Angeles Convention Center next door to Staples Center, NHL All-Star FANtasy will anchor the festivities leading up to the NHL All-Star game. This multifaceted fan fair will take place over the course of the four-day celebration.<br \/>\nAt All-Star FANtasy, puck followers will get a chance to test their slap shot against a radar gun and tend goal in a virtual-reality setting.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I found this today when I was looking for images of the game&#8230; and wanted to add a side note.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[2376,3],"tags":[830,9,1069,1064,1073],"coauthors":[2260],"class_list":["post-2402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brendan-fehr","category-leading","tag-all-star-game","tag-brendan-fehr","tag-bruckheimers-bad-boys","tag-ice-hockey","tag-nhl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2402"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29003,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402\/revisions\/29003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2402"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}