Gary Bettman says enforcer John Scott ‘welcome’ at NHL all-star game

NHL All Star weekend and its biggest star could be John Scott, the last player the league wanted in Nashville.

The NHL allowed fans to vote for the captain of each of its four divisions as the league switches to a 3-on-3 format for this All-Star Game.

“I’m sure he won over a lot of people, and got even more fans”, Chicago forward Patrick Kane said of Scott.

“I know everyone’s going to have their eyes glued to me so I don’t want to do anything too stupid, too silly”, he added.

Head coach Barry Trotz even acknowledged that they are willing to have Ovechkin get suspended for a game in order to get him fully healthy. The club also has a pair of two-way forwards and two of the NHL’s top faceoff men in Boston’s Patrice Bergeron and Buffalo’s Ryan O’Reilly, who could make a difference in the offense-friendly format.

And an eloquent essay is only making him more of a fan favourite ahead of Sunday’s NHL All-Star Game.

Scott is an entertaining person (as is Burns), he has been one of the most popular players in the days leading up to the game, and is probably going to handle himself better in the game than anybody expects. It’s gotten a lot of publicity. He thought back to his first All-Star Game as a 19-year-old, held at Philadelphia’s Spectrum, and didn’t feel like he deserved to attend.

Scott didnt just make the roster: Fans flocked online and voted him captain of the Pacific Division, taking advantage of the NHLs willingness to give them the ability to turn at least one position into a popularity contest. Bettman told The Associated Press that he had a nice chat with Scott on Thursday night.

“Obviously, the fans decided it was important to vote for him, and we respect that”.

John Scott shares a laugh with his teammates as he practices with the St. John’s Ice Caps, an AHL affiliate of the Montreal Canadiens, in Portland this week.

Bettman brushed off a question Saturday about Scott’s article in The Player’s Tribune, in which he wrote an National Hockey League representative talked to him and asked, “Do you think this is something your kids would be proud of?”.

Back on January 2, it was announced that Scott, who had one point in 11 games along with 25 penalty minutes with the Coyotes, had been named one of the four captains for the All-Star Game. When you are young, you are “excited and you are very good, but you don’t even know how good you are”. “I was playing on the third, fourth line with the Pittsburgh Penguins, because we had so many great players and the fans voted me in”.

“I guarantee nobody would say yes because it’s not about the Cup; it’s about the whole year spending [time] with the guys, it’s about the games, you have to suffer everything to win it. It’s not about the Cup”.

Scott said his former Arizona teammates supported him accepting his All-Star spot. He played in a career-high 56 games with the Sabres two years ago, and scored a career-high three goals last season with the Sharks. I, John Scott from Michigan Tech, at 33 years old…have All-Star gloves.

According to Scott, a league official asked him: “Do you think this is something your kids would be proud of?”.

“I tried to put myself in the Accuracy and I think I got bumped from that”, he said. “It’s tough to get up and go and travel and bring your family along to a destination you might not anticipate, but once you’re here you enjoy the moment, you enjoy being around the fans and other players, being able to go out and showcase the skills and the game is pretty fun”. The All Star game is scheduled to be played Sunday, Jan. 31.

“At 6’8” tall, Scott is a player known mostly for fighting on the ice – something he admits in a column he penned for The Players’ Tribune. I hope they have fun with it and get behind me.

It’s impossible to read Scott’s story and not be touched by it. He was a big guy who never meant to be a goon. While they were watching “Billy Madison”, he was trying to take a thermodynamics test.