Bleedin' Blue
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St. Louis Blues Fans Can Relive Past All-Star Games January 23

By Todd Panula

ST. LOUIS, MO - FEBRUARY 9: Wayne Gretzky #99 of the Campbell Conference and the Edmonton Oilers skates with the puck as he is defended by Mark Howe #2 of the Wales Conference and the Philadelphia Flyers during the 1988 39th NHL All-Star Game on February 9, 1988 at the St. Louis Arena in St. Louis, Missouri. The Wales Conference defeated the Campbell Conference 6-5. (Photo by B Bennett/Getty Images)
ST. LOUIS, MO - FEBRUARY 9: Wayne Gretzky #99 of the Campbell Conference and the Edmonton Oilers skates with the puck as he is defended by Mark Howe #2 of the Wales Conference and the Philadelphia Flyers during the 1988 39th NHL All-Star Game on February 9, 1988 at the St. Louis Arena in St. Louis, Missouri. The Wales Conference defeated the Campbell Conference 6-5. (Photo by B Bennett/Getty Images) /
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The St. Louis Blues will be hosting the 2020 NHL All-Star Game. However, fans won’t have to wait until that game to see some of the game’s biggest names who have played in St. Louis.

St. Louis Blues fans and hockey fans in general have to wait until Saturday, January 25 to see the Enterprise Center host the 2020 NHL All-Star Game. Thanks to Fox Sports Midwest and the NHL, fans won’t have to wait that long to see an All-Star Game in St. Louis.

The league and the Blues’ broadcast partner have paired up and will show the past All-Star Games from St. Louis. The two games will be televised on January 23.

The 1970 All-Star Game will be shown at 5 p.m. The 1988 All-Star Game will follow that at 7 p.m. Fox Sports Midwest will then show a one-hour special highlighting all the things going on around the area for the festive weekend.

The 1970 game was packed with Blues players. Scotty Bowman was coach and he had his own players like Red Berenson, Barclay Plager, Jacques Plante, Jim Roberts, Gary Sabourin and Frank St. Marseille.

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Phil Goyette, Glenn Hall and Ab McDonald were all selected to the team as well, but did not play. A then rookie, Bobby Clarke, replaced Goyette who had a knee injury.

1970 had the distinction of being the first NHL All-Star Game carried live on American broadcast television. Another interesting note was the 1970 game was the first one since 1948 that was not hosted at the arena of the defending Stanley Cup champion.

It also featured the voice of the Blues, Dan Kelly, doing the second and third period play-by-play. Not coincidentally, current Blues announcer John Kelly will do short introductions to each game and then set up the action called by his father.

I won’t spoil the final score, but just know the setup was different back then due to the divisions being different. Bobby Hull of the Chicago Blackhawks was playing on the visiting team.

The only Blues on the scoresheet were Berenson with an assist and St. Marseille with a penalty. The real Walt Tkaczuk (not Keith Tkachuk) scored a goal too.

For the younger, yet still older fan, the 1988 game will be the one to watch. A useless fact about that game is it was the only time Wayne Gretzky wore a home uniform at the St. Louis Arena.

Rob Ramage was the only Blues representative in that game. If you’re wondering why, Brett Hull was not traded to the Blues until the following season.

Despite that, future Blues like Gretzky, Al MacInnis, Peter Stastny, Glen Anderson, Dale Hawerchuk and Grant Fuhr were all in that game. Also, Bob Probert made this All-Star Game, though don’t ask me how.

Again not giving away the score, this game was a lot higher scoring than the previous one in the shadow of the Arch. Mario Lemieux set a new All-Star Game points record in this particular game.

All-Star Games are just exhibitions, but it will be fun to look back on those old games and see the evolution of the style. The 1970 game had a more realistic hockey score because guys were playing a bit harder. By 1988, the game had gone the way of little defense and goalies left out to dry, but there were still so many future Hall of Fame players going, it is fun just to see all the names.

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Often these games don’t get rebroadcast, or are buried somewhere on the NHL Network that not everyone has access too. It is nice to see FSMW get the games, regardless of the fact no Fox company broadcast either of them, so older fans can reminisce and new fans can see the big names of those days.

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