Montreal Canadiens: Remembering The 1993 All-Star Game

Despite being held scoreless, Nick Suzuki held his own at this year’s All-Star game in Las Vegas. The Montreal Canadiens centerman and future captain candidate said he had fun in his first All-Star Game.

Let’s however set the time machine exactly 29 years ago, on February 6th 1993 where the 44th All-Star Game was held at the old Montreal Forum. The divisions were different, the game was different, heck, life as a whole was very different than it is today.

Patrick Roy and Kirk Muller were the Canadiens’ representatives for this game. Some eyebrow raisers included the selection of goaltender Peter Sidorkiewicz of the expansion Ottawa Senators who trailblazed his way to a 8-46-3 record with a GAA of 4.43 and .856 save percentage in 64 games in his lone season in Canada’s capital. A subject of the mandatory “one player per team” rule that continues to disgruntle many fans, including the Nick Suzuki naysayers.

We also witnessed the “Commissioner’s Selection” for both the Wales (Eastern) and Campbell (Western) conferences. Wales saw another Ottawa “star” this time in the name of defenceman Brad Marsh who was staring in the face of Father Time and subsequently retired after the season. Fun fact: Marsh scored a goal in the All-Star game marking his only goal of the year. He finished the year with no goals and 3 assists.

The other selection for the Campbell Conference was future Head Coach and veteran defenceman Randy Carlyle. He would also retire at the end of the season wearing the colors of the original Winnipeg Jets.

The skills competition would give us some classic moments such as Ray Bourque hitting 4 for 4 in the accuracy shot competition. Something he would do on an almost regular basis. Another magical moment was the hardest shot competition where we saw Washington Capitals defenceman Al Iafrate and his infamous “skullet” win the event with an incredible display of power topping 105.2 mph. Remember, composite sticks weren’t a thing yet in those days. The record would be held for 16 years before Zdeno Chara broke it in 2009 with a 105.4 mph shot. He would beat his own record twice with 105.9 mph in 2011 and 108.8 mph in 2011.

Head coaches for the game were Scotty Bowman of the Pittsburgh Penguins for the Wales and Mike Keenan of the Chicago Blackhawks for Campbell. Honorary captains were former Canadiens legends Henri “Pocket Rocket” Richard for the Wales and Frank Mahovlich for Campbell. Here’s a blast from the past name for you older fans, the referee for the night (yes, back then there was only one referee and two linesmen) was Dan Marouelli with linesmen Ryan Bozak and Kevin Collins.

Prior to the game, Pittsburgh Penguins superstar Mario Lemieux was given a tribute. Lemieux had just been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease and obviously could not play. He was replaced by Rick Tocchet in the starting lineup. Other notable absentees were Brian Leetch, Mark Messier and Jeff Brown replaced by Kevin Lowe, Mike Gartner and Garth Butcher.

It’s hard to believe someone like Mike Gartner wouldn’t get voted into the All-Star game despite notching 45 goals that year, but that’s how star studded the league was that game. Gartner would prove to everyone that he belonged there playing with an unnatural chip on his shoulder (for an All-Star game that is), winning the fastest skater event and earning the MVP honors notching 4 goals in the same game. Only Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux and Vincent Damphousse scored as many goals in the annual event.

The game itself was an absolute blowout with the Wales Conference winning 16 to 6. Kirk Muller notched one assist in the game on a Pat Lafontaine goal while Roy shutout the Campbell Conference playing the first period and facing 11 shots. Some future Habs were on display as we saw Pierre Turgeon of the New York Islanders getting the hat trick and 2 assists for a 5 point night. Mark Recchi of the Philadelphia Flyers also had a 5 point night with a goal and 4 assists. Remember Zarley Zalapski who played for Montreal in his final NHL season in 97-98? Well he was there as well representing the Hartford Whalers but ended with goose eggs on the scoresheet. On the Campbell Conference side we saw Chris Chelios (Blackhawks), Dave Manson (Edmonton Oilers) and Doug Gilmour (Maple Leafs) representing past and future Montreal Canadiens players.

A crowd of 17,137 packed the old Montreal Forum who was on its last legs before closing in 1996. The famed arena hosted the All-Star game for the 11th and final time giving its fans a roster compromising of an incredible 22 future Hall of Famers, not counting the players originally selected but couldn’t play.

Of course, the true event of that year was the arena hosting the Stanley Cup finals for the 31st time in its history and closing the year with the hometown heroes lifting their 24th Stanley Cup in franchise history.

What a year.