Strike 2: The past weekend featured a pair of “All-Star” events that could not have been more different.

Let’s start with this: When it comes to All-Star games, no one is touching Major League Baseball (including the Home Run Derby.) That event stands above all others. The other three major sports have spent a lot of time and brain power trying to figure out how to catch up.

Perhaps the sport of professional hockey is on to something?

The days of the automatic East vs. West or AFC vs. NFC kind of games have passed, largely because high paid players no longer really give a rip about actually competing. In the past, guys like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant actually cared – A LOT – about winning the All-Star game. And there was a time when being on the winning side also meant a nice bonus in your paycheck. However, by today’s salary standards, that bonus is negligible.

All that really matters to today’s players are actual championships. Rings. Rings still matter. Those they will compete hard for.

But there is something else that still matters: National pride.

The past weekend’s portion of hockey’s Four Nations Face-Off proved once again that playing for national pride still means A LOT. It means more than money. By contrast, the NBA’s newest version of an All-Star game – games actually – also proved that no matter what kind of gimmick is put forth (this time it was a series of non-competitive shorter games) the result is the same: Glorified pick-up game(s) with lackluster effort and a who-cares-who-wins attitude.

For the NBA All-Stars, this year’s event amounted to little more than a pregame shoot around with fans in attendance. Nothing to see here.

The NHL has also had its share of failures when it comes to All-Star games, but by shifting gears this season and having four teams of NHL standouts play for their respective countries in a tournament setting, they finally hit on the right formula. No, that wasn’t “Slapshot II” and you were watching. That wasn’t the Hansen brothers out there for the opening face-off on Saturday night. When the United States faced off against Canada and three fights erupted before the first 10 seconds of playing time had come off the clock, it wasn’t a movie. But it was “Old-time hockey, coach.”

It was crystal clear that national pride was the motivator, and is the thing to save All-Star events.

Whether you like fighting in hockey or not (and international play typically features less fighting than the NHL regular season) the fact that the players on the ice were willing to sacrifice their cheekbones in order to beat their rival country made the event instantly entertaining.

The competition mattered. And that’s what fans want: Competitions that matter.

It was more than worthy of a sellout crowd and a large TV viewing audience. And given what we saw on Saturday night, you can expect an even bigger audience for Thursday night’s championship game when the USA and Canada go at it once again, this time for the Four Nations championship.

It’s the kind of event that’s fair to expect when you pit the best of the best against each other.

So how can we make this kind of competition permanent in “All-Star” events?

Unfortunately, football is basically stuck. There’s really no other way to make the NFL’s Pro Bowl event anything more than it is. Maybe if you hold the flag football game during an off week in the regular season there might be a little more buzz. But the risk of injury is just too great for the NFL’s best to go all out in a real exhibition football game. And baseball already has a cool international competition, the World Baseball Classic, played every three years during the spring. So the argument is really about what hockey has already done (and hopefully will continue) and what basketball could do.

Next season we get NHL’ers back in the Olympics. After that, the future of the Four Nations Face-Off is uncertain. Hopefully it becomes a regular thing.

As for hoops, it’s time for the NBA to quit messing around with warm and fuzzy halfhearted shooting exhibitions, and give the fans what they want: The USA v the World NBA All-Star game.  Probably wouldn’t be a fight after the opening tip, but you can be very sure there would be an all-out effort on both side to win.