“Classless move by @ovi8 ‘opting’ out of NHL Allstar Game,” tweeted Andy McDonald of the St. Louis Blues, a direct Twitterverse hit on the Washington Capitals captain, who canceled his ticket to Ottawa in a snit over being suspended three games by the league for an illegal hit.

But you know what? For every Ovechkin, there is a James Neal of the Pittsburgh Penguins, visibly thrilled to be a last minute replacement for Ovechkin.

“To be alongside all these great players is something I’ll never forget, and it’s my first one,” Neal told us in an interview room at the Hilton Lac Leamy following Friday’s All Star Fantasy Draft.

For every sulking Ovie, there is a Jamie Benn, Dallas Stars forward. Benn had an appendectomy on Jan. 15, and missed five regular season games. If any player in the league had reason to stay home and rest up it was Benn. Instead, earlier this week he pronounced himself ready to go, jumped on a plane to Ottawa, so impressing all-star captain Zdeno Chara that he selected Benn as the penultimate pick, reasoning that anyone who made such a sacrifice to be here didn’t deserve to go last in the draft.

On it goes, up and down the rosters of Team Chara and Team Daniel Alfredsson. The joy on players faces is legit at this event. They’re kids again, hanging out with their buddies.

Senators centre Jason Spezza, though nasal from a nasty head cold, was grinning and chatting throughout the fantasy draft, usually to teammate Erik Karlsson, but generally in praise of rival stars as their names were called. I asked Spezza what he expects to be his personal highlight of All-Star Weekend.

“I enjoy the skills competition, because there is a lot of down time, a lot of talking among the guys, and you get to bring your family into the (dressing) room,” Spezza said. “But I think this time the game will be a little more special than first time around for me because it’s at home.”

Spezza’s previous all-star experience was in Atlanta, 2008.

Nobody was more thrilled to fly through three time zones to get here than Corey Perry of the Anaheim Ducks (or “Mighty Ducks” as Chara called them, when he announed Perry’s name at the draft. The venerable Teemu Selanne was the natural choice to represent Anaheim, but Selanne pitched for Perry to go, largely because of Perry’s brilliant 2010-11 season, during which he won the Hart and Rocket Richard trophies.

With Perry’s family living just a few hours across Highway 7 in Peterborough, the rugged winger, drafted in Anaheim by current Senators general manager Bryan Murray, was a natural fit for the Ottawa ASG.

“It’s the kind of guy (Teemu) is, he’ll do anything for you,” Perry says. “He’s one of those guys that you look up to.”

Even if he is playing for the “visiting” Chara team vs. Alfredsson’s Senator-laden “home” team, Perry will have a ton of support at Scotiabank Place on Sunday. Perry’s parents, aunts, uncles and cousins (living in Ottawa) will be here. Perhaps the greatest treat for Perry is to get a chance to be in the same time zone of grandmother Dorothy Perry of Peterborough.

“She watches every game,” Perry says. “Ten o’clock eastern time is when we start, but she’s up, she sits there in her chair and watches. She’s my biggest fan.”

In the summer of 2007, after Anaheim beat Ottawa in the final, Perry was able to share the Stanley Cup with hockey fans in Peterborough, but he took extra time to pose with the trophy alongside his grandmother, slightly awed by the occasion.

“It’s something I will never forget,” Dorothy Perry told Mike Davies of the Peterborough Examiner. “At such a young age (Perry was 22 at the time) it’s quite exciting. In my mind, I was expecting older kids to be on the Stanley Cup.”

There are young and old “kids” at the ASG, in the true sense of the word.

They’re hanging out, having fun, getting into mischief.

“That blonde is unbelievable,” Patrick Kane was heard whispering to Brian Campbell, his former Chicago Blackhawks teammate, during the draft, an apparent reference to a female fan in the audience. Afterward, Kane deflected the attention, saying he was simply referring to a “kid in the front row.”

Kane reminds us how much fun being an NHL star can be. Another young Cup champion, Kane, was 21 when the Hawks were crowned in 2010, and doesn’t have a ton of sympathy for older veterans who give the all star fest a pass.

“It’s six, seven days off, to do whatever you want but I think once you get here you realize how fun it really is,” Kane said.

“I’m excited to be here, I love coming to these things. I think it’s a big honour to be picked so, why wouldn’t you want to come and be a part of it.”

Follow Wayne Scanlan on Twitter.com: @HockeyScanner