NBC’s Doc Emrick gives his thoughts on the intrigue of this year’s All-Star Weekend

NHL on NBC’s lead play-by-play man Mike “Doc” Emrick will be on the mic for the NHL SuperSkills Saturday night and All-Star Game Sunday afternoon for Versus and if you asked him, the way the team draft plays out on Friday night for the NHL All-Star Player Fantasy Draft at 8 p.m. the real drama kicks the weekend off right.

“It used to be that the first day of All-Star Weekend was a travel day. Now with the draft on Friday it’s arguably the most looked forward to part of it all. During our Winter Classic broadcast, Pierre McGuire, Mike Milbury, and Darren Pang had a sort of mock trial about all this and Mike asked, ‘Do you pick your friends or do you pick the guys you figure will make the best team?’ It’s a great question and it’s a great concept.You know, it makes it so fun especially when it comes down to who ends up getting picked last.”

Emrick is one of the biggest appreciators of the game around and it’s something that you can tell in how he calls a game on the air. While being a professional at what he does at calling the games he finds it’s hard to not be a fan with how the selection process will break down especially with so many possible story lines to go through that may come up suddenly on Friday night, especially with the Staal boys. With the fantasy draft on Friday night, he’s now got an event he’s looking forward to more than an old stand by.

“I always liked seeing Zdeno Chara taking the hardest shot and whether or not he could break his mark from the previous year. But now our thoughts don’t turn to that as much as it does to who’s is going to choose whom and at what point and what statement is being made by that. All this speculation about that, it helps make this meet up that much more fun.”

It’s hard not to be caught in thinking about how the Fantasy Draft will turn out on Friday night. After all, we don’t even have teams and rosters to break down and compare to one another. All we’ve got for now is that Eric Staal has Washington’s Mike Green and Vancouver’s Ryan Kesler as his assistants while Nick Lidstrom has Martin St. Louis and Patrick Kane helping him out. Everything else is up in the air now especially with Sidney Crosby and Ales Hemsky out of the game with injuries.

With all the attention being on these guys for how things will play out on Friday night, some are wondering whether or not it’ll make for good television. Emrick says that rather than hamming it up as showmen, Staal and Lidstrom would be better served to do things the same way they always have.

“I don’t know whether they’re going to turn into showbiz guys. To tell you the honest truth, I’d be a little disappointed if they did because that’s not the personality of either one. They’re decisive guys. If they’re going to end up showboating or anything like that, that would be a bit that’s out of character for them,” Emrick says.

“If they’re going to have fun with it though, that’s great. Their idea of fun might be different than that of somebody who’s in the entertainment business. The good news is they’re going to be making some great hockey. I’m going to be a fan of the whole thing too.”

Often times folks look at the All-Star Game with a bit of a cynical view and while that’s understandable in some cases, it’s also a stress-free way to show off the game and with how things will set up for Sunday via Friday night’s draft you have to be a pretty hardened character to not look at this whole thing with a sense of wonderment and curiosity.

If you’ve ever played a video game or fantasy hockey (or fantasy sports of any kind) you always wondered how the team you’ve picked would shake out. It’s just one game, but if heard it from Doc Emrick, you’d start to see that maybe looking at things so cut and dried is maybe missing the point of it all.

“The players don’t think much about the business side of things when they’re out on the ice. Once that puck drops, they’re going to be doing the absolute best they can with the skill sets they have and probably have a lot of smiles on their faces because they know it doesn’t cost them anything in the standings,” Emrick says.

“That’s the reason the video you see from all-star games shows players laughing. This is not the serious business of moving up in the standings this is just having a little fun on the weekend and let’s see what happens.”