John Scott is a veteran in the National Hockey League.  At 33 years old, he has played for the Buffalo Sabres, San Jose Sharks, Minnesota Wild, Chicago Blackhawks, New York Rangers, and this year the Arizona Coyotes.

However, since he was drafted into the league in 2008, he has not been the strongest of players.

In all of his regular seasons, he has only had 5 career points while he has -18 points when on the ice. This puts him near the bottom at a list of rankings among current players.

However, each year for the NHL All-Star Game, fans vote online to nominate players that they want to see compete in skills competitions and the game. This year, as a prank, fans voted John Scott onto the All-Star team. This quickly became a “thing” and gained national popularity. Everyone was voting for Scott just for the fun of it.

The National Hockey League was not pleased with this. They did not want a low-action player in the All-Star game, so they asked Scott to bow out of the game. When he didn’t, they traded him to the American Hockey League so he was ineligible for the game.

However, the public was outraged by this underhanded move. If John Scott was chosen by the public to play in the game, he should be able to play, as the voters wanted.

Even Scott himself said, “I haven’t really heard anything from the league or anything so I don’t know what the position is or where anybody stands right now. It’s all kind of up in the air.”

It’s clear that this dilemma was uncharted territory for everyone.

Ultimately, it was concluded that the league’s interference with Scott’s eligibility negated the entire purpose of hockey fans voting. As the NHL realized all the backlash created by their decision, they reinstated John Scott just for the game—as captain of the Pacific Division team nonetheless!

On Jan. 31, at the All-Star game, Scott brought his A-game. In addition to getting the loudest cheer in the building, Scott scored twice in the qualifying game to get his team to the championship.  At this game, his team won 2-0 and John Scott was voted the MVP. Since his “Pacific” team won, they got a 1 million dollar prize, split 11 ways between the players.  Scott was also voted team MVP!  For this, he received a Honda car from the league!

All in all, the all star weekend was a success and a truly fun experience for both fans and players alike. Seeing the smiles on John Scott’s face throughout the weekend showed he had a blast.