Bettman: Happy to have John Scott as All-Star

The league said that with Scott in the minors, he was not eligible to play in the NHL All-Star Game.

Shortly thereafter, the details started to emerge surrounding Scott and the All-Star Game, how Don Maloney and Bill Daly had both asked him to not go, offering a paid vacation instead. “They can skate and do different things”.

After 15 minutes, the questions for John Scott subsided, and All-Star weekend’s Cinderella turned to the media with an unusual request.

Scott wrote that he wasn’t in “a real hockey fight”, until he was 23. The NHL rules that you can’t break. It’s definitely always there: you’re not in the National Hockey League anymore. “I didn’t really like that feeling”. He said, ‘We’re happy to have you here, we’re going to have a good time, make the best of it and just have fun in Nashville’. “The fans spoke, and we’re happy to reflect their will”.

“It was nice to hear that coming from him because there was a time when I was not really sure how the league felt”. Asked Friday if this is his last all-star game, he simply said, “Yes”.

The outcry that followed when the Arizona Coyotes traded him to the Montreal Canadiens – who then promptly sent him to the AHL, making him ineligible to play in the game – was sizeable.

The NHL’s latest attempt to revive the All-Star game takes place on Sunday in Nashville when it rolls its new 3-on-3 format that features teams from the four divisions taking part in a series of mini-games.

Ratings for last year’s All-Star game in Columbus, Ohio were down, as the event drew an audience of 1.194 million, a 14 percent drop from the 2012 game (1.317 million), also on NBCSN.

The league’s online shop is sold out of John Scott shirts just days away from the game in Nashville.

“They should do something if they dont want this to happen again, ” Scott said. “Obviously it’s gotten a lot of publicity and a lot of people excited about watching the game”. “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”. “It could be a good thing”.

The “Scott” All-Star jerseys are among the hottest items in Nashville.

“It’s nice to be a fan favourite”, said Scott.

“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.

The Devils didn’t consult Jagr on the deal and he said he didn’t know anything about the Panthers, didn’t know their players. “John is just a great guy, a straight shooter”.

“He had 200 goals on the night I was born, ” said 19-year-old Aaron Ekblad, one of four players or coaches representing the Panthers this weekend. “I’ve had big incidents in hockey like the Kessel thing and suspensions people see that and say, ‘This guy is an animal”. “Before the first game in Pittsburgh, I think it was after the first period and we were losing 3-0”.

I hope he scores a goal or two. However, guys like Evgeni Malkin, Patrice Bergeron, Erik Karlsson, Patrick Kane, Johnny Gaudreau, Taylor Hall, Jamie Benn, and Tyler Seguin will be there.

As welcoming as National Hockey League stars have been, there are signs that Scott’s All-Star selection has an asterisk attached. “He’s worked incredibly hard to be where he is”, said Florida goalie Roberto Luongo.

“I don’t want to embarrass anybody out there”, he joked. I, John Scott from Michigan Tech, at 33 years old…have All-Star gloves.

“I remember a year ago in Columbus I let Toews walk around me and my dad said, ‘What are you doing?’ But if he’s trying to show a high-skill play, I don’t want to pokecheck him”. His star player, Alex Ovechkin, is staying home with a lower-body injury, but Trotz will be coaching the Metropolitan Division in Sunday’s game.

Jagr insisted he wasn’t complaining and that he appreciates fans’ desire to see him, but he said that two weeks shy of his 44th birthday he wanted to be working out in Florida to build strength for the stretch run – not chasing younger men in a three-on-three tournament in Tennessee.