TopShelf's Journal: Hacking the NHL All-Star Game

With Montreal hosting the 2009 NHL All-Star Game, Canadiens fans are obviously excited to vote online to get their players into the starting lineup for the Eastern Conference. The league found, however, that after barely a day of voting, the "Flying Frenchmen" were in position for all six starting spots, with vote totals that were often 200% higher than rival stars like Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin, who are widely regarded as the biggest names in the sport. A script posted on a Habs fan forum enabled users to automatically hammer away at the NHL's balloting site, in violation of the rules.

The league has belatedly added a captcha to the voting page to confound the Greasemonkey crowd, but this episode begs a question: since the NHL boasts that its avid fans are exceedingly techno-savvy, isn't this exactly the sort of competition they'd like to see? For example, alliances could be formed between cities in opposite conferences to get each other's players into the honored slots.

Last year, a similar (albeit more grassroots) drive nearly led to journeyman Rory Fitzpatrick getting named to the Western Conference squad.