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Internet's power over all-star fan votes put leagues in tough spot

Hockey is yet again on the cutting edge of modern Internet thought, and rather than bathe in the alleged embarrassment of the John Scott matter, it should be celebrating its role in the Zaza Pachulia scandal-ette.

In other words, the all-star fan vote scam has been reduced ... well, perfected, to the prank call it should be, and it all begins with the NHL.

Go back, dear friends, to 2007, when a hardy band of voters assembled a grass-roots campaign (that included cheesy YouTube ads) to put little-used Vancouver Canucks defenseman Rory Fitzpatrick on the Western Conference All-Star team, and it was on the verge of working when the NHL stepped in and (not proven but almost certainly true) fudged the final numbers to get Nicklas Lidstrom and Scott Niedermayer on the team instead.