Ottawa to Host 2012 All-Stars

NHL unveils 2012 All-Star logoThe Ottawa Senators will host the 59th NHL All-Star Game on Jan. 29, 2012, the league announced today.

No time was wasted in unveiling the new logo for the event. It features the Peace Tower, which was a key element in the original Senators' logo, which was replaced by the time the team took the ice in 1992.

It will be the first time hosting All-Star festivities for Canada's capital city. All-Star Weekend will take place Jan. 28-29 at Scotiabank Place in Ottawa.

Some other bits of information that might be of interest: This will be the fourth consecutive All-Star Game hosted by an Eastern Conference team. But to be fair, the East hosted only one game between 2001 and 2007, and that was in South Florida in 2003. (Also '05 and '06 had no All-Star games.)

Also, Tthe 2011-12 season marks the Sens' 20th anniversary. And while it is Ottawa's first time hosting the All-Star weekend, they did host the NHL Entry Drafts in 2005 and 2008.

By the way, it took the league almost four months to give up the logo for this year's All-Star Game after the Hurricanes were announced as host in April. This one we got the same day. Yet we're still waiting just to see the uniforms for the 2011 All-Star Game. Something's out of order here.

You can read more about the 2012 All-Star Game on the Senators' website.