Excerpt from CBC Sports:
The NHL is investigating a suspicious spike in votes for Montreal Canadiens players in all-star fan balloting.
Fans choose the starting lineups for the all-star game by voting at NHL.com, and all six Canadiens on the ballot have huge leads in balloting for the Eastern Conference team.
Montreal forwards Saku Koivu, Alex Kovalev and Alex Tanguay lead Washington’s Alexander Semin and Alex Ovechkin by more than 100,000 votes.
Defencemen Andrei Markov and Mike Komisarek lead Boston’s Zdeno Chara and Washington’s Mike Green by 130,000 votes.
Habs goalie Carey Price has an even bigger lead. He’s received 137,000 more votes than Henrik Lundquist of the Rangers.
Montreal will host the NHL all-star game in late January. If the results stay the same, for the first time in NHL history fans will have given all six starting spots to players on one team.
“I don’t want to jump to conclusions at this point. There is some indication that something has happened,” said NHL spokesman Gary Meaghar. “I’m not at a point where I can say definitively that something has taken place.”
Via Kuklas Korner:
NHL Statement…
We appreciate the excitement and energy the fans are showing for the All-Star Game and the All-Star voting process. While we encourage all fans to cast votes—even multiple votes—for their favorite All-Star candidates, the League has identified some instances of automated voting activity that expressly is prohibited by the voting rules and regulations. This situation is being addressed and we are in the process of validating all votes to make sure that they comply with the rules.
LOL, it will turn out to be some 12 year old kid who has hacked into all the Department of National Defence computers to get them auto voting for his favorite players. I can’t wait to hear the story.
Automated voting instructions and a process that selects all the Canadiens on the All-Star ballot have been posted and re-posted in the comments section at Habs Inside/Out for several days now.
Maybe the underhanded operations are jinxing the Hab players. Komisarek and Price in particular have played poorly since the news came out, and Markov too.
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