ECHL ECHL

Compuware/ECHL All-Star Festivities A Success

Published on January 23, 2003 under ECHL (ECHL) News Release


PRINCETON, N.J. – Hosted by the Florida Everblades, The 2003 Compuware/ECHL All-Star Game was played in front of 6,442 fans at TECO Arena in Estero, Fla. on Tuesday. Toledo's Nick Parillo scored two goals and Atlantic City's Scott Stirling earned Most Valuable Player honors after stopping all 11 shots in the first period as the Northern Conference beat the Southern Conference, 8-2.

The Northern Conference also won the skills competition on Monday. For the third consecutive year, the festivities featured The Stanley Cup as well as interactive games and displays from The Hockey Hall of Fame.

Thirty five of the 42 players were making their first appearance in an ECHL All-Star Game and 25 of those were rookies, including Southern Conference starting goaltender Rob Zepp and Northern Conference starting forward Jason Jaffray, who leads the ECHL with 29 goals and 66 points. The game had international flavor with Laurent Meunier from France and Takahito Suzuki from Japan. The average age of the Northern Conference roster was 23.3 years old, including goaltender Mike Smith, who turns 21 in March. The average age of the Southern Conference was 23.6 years old, including Zepp, who turned 21 in September.

In attendance were National Hockey League scouts from the Atlanta Thrashers, the Chicago Blackhawks, the Colorado Avalanche, the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Detroit Red Wings, the Florida Panthers, the Nashville Predators, the New York Rangers, the Pittsburgh Penguins, the St. Louis Blues, and the Tampa Bay Lightning as well as scouts from the American Hockey League and a reporter from Sports-i ESPN Network Inc. in Japan covering Suzuki.

Four players – Jaffray, Zenon Konopka, J.J. Hunter and Mike Smith – were called up to the AHL following Tuesday's game. Twenty eight of the 42 players from the 2002 ECHL All-Star Game have gone on to play in the AHL while Vern Fiddler and Curtis Sanford have each played in the NHL.

Televised live for the second consecutive year, the game was available to more than 3.9 million Comcast Sports Southeast / Charter Sports Southeast subscribers in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. The game was also available live on NHL Center Ice in the United States, on the NHL Network in Canada, and in Greensboro, Pensacola and Peoria. Former New York Rangers President and General Manager and Current ESPN and NHL Network commentator and analyst Neil Smith handled the color commentary while Florida's Mark Miller did the play-by-play. Darren Abbott, who is the voice of the South Carolina Stingrays, worked ice level interviewing players, coaches, marketing partners, and representatives from the National Hockey League and the American Hockey League.

The ECHL in association with Yahoo! Broadcast also made the telecast available online with live broadband video, and for the fifth consecutive year the game was produced in conjunction with NHL Radio and available live on the internet through Yahoo! Broadcast while also being broadcast live on radio stations in several ECHL markets. The broadcast featured Mississippi's Mike Kelly, Greenville's David Miller and Roanoke's Kevin Reiter.

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ECHL Stories from January 23, 2003


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