I spent the last three days attending the 55th Annual NHL All-Star Game festivities at the American Airlines Center in Dallas. It was awesome. I have a friend who was a volunteer, so he was driving pro athletes and celebrities around town and stuff, and he had special access to the events, but being a lazy bastard, I opted to just kinda chill and go with the flow, rather than working hard to go out of my way to use an insider hookup.

Monday night was the Tribute to a "Generation of Stars", which was hosted by Cuba Gooding Jr. They brought out several new/old school hockey guys like Mark Messier, Ray Bourque, Al MacInnis, Brett Hull, Mario Lemiuex, and others. Each player said a few words and it was a nice little ceremony. Then the actual all-stars come out for a warm up/practice thing.

Tuesday night was the official red carpet arrival for the players, the Young Stars Game, and the Super Skills Competition. I got there a little bit late, but I was right by the red carpet stage and took some good pictures. The young stars game was cool, but it was 4 on 4, and didn't last very long. The Super Skills Competition seems to be everyone's favorite. It was a blast to watch.

Then finally Wednesday night was the actual All-Star game. The Western Conference dominated the game for the most part, but the Eastern Conference got several fancy goals as well. The final score was 12-9, well over 15.5 point over/under set by Vegas odds makers.

I saw several celebrities there such as wrestling's Triple H, Wade Williams, who plays Officer Brad Bellick on Prison break, William Fichtner, who plays Agent Alex Mahone on Prison Break, Gordie Howe, Troy Aikman, and a few others, including many local celebrities from radio and television.

It really was a excellent experience, and one that I simply could not miss being a huge hockey fan.