It was like a scene out of the movie Field of Dreams, where star players materialized out of nowhere to convene in one location, for one night.  Only instead of ghosts in an Iowa cornfield, last night’s charity game to benefit victims of Hurricane Sandy was in Atlantic City – with living, breathing NHL players.  With no TV coverage available, only the sellout crowd of 10,792 fans in attendance last night got to see the first hockey game with NHL players filling out both rosters since June’s Stanley Cup Finals.  Thanks to 98.7 ESPN radio in South Jersey though, there was radio coverage of the event – which included a pregame and a postgame with broadcasters Ryan Messick and Mike Gill.

While this event attracted stars such as Steven Stamkos and Corey Perry and also brought vet ref Kerry Fraser out of retirement for a game, it did have a local feel to it with ‘Team New Jersey’ (with mostly Flyers players and a few Devils) against ‘Team New York’ (Ranger players primarily) while Lauren Hart – daughter of longtime Flyers’ broadcaster Gene – sang the national anthem last night.  While fans from all over the country convened on Atlantic City, the majority were clearly Ranger and Flyer fans, as evidenced by the booing and ‘Marty!’ chants Martin Brodeur got last night.  I guess in an odd way that was a touch of normalcy, though it didn’t really matter in the end that Henrik Lundqvist stole the show with fifty-six saves in a 10-6 win – the Ranger goaltender’s first competitive action since that memorable Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals last year between him and Marty.

What did matter was the hundreds of thousands of dollars raised for victims all over the tri-state area, which was the most important thing.  And the fact that the dark cloud that’s been over hockey for the last few months was lifted – albeit only for a night – long enough to at least enjoy a game again.  Even if it was a quasi All-Star game, where penalty shots were given as opposed to power plays (and amazingly enough, none of the shooters converted on a handful of attempts), and the ‘coaches’ were Rich Tocchet and Jersey Shore’s Vinny.  It was still a 60-minute game with two intermissions and a goal horn, involving players everyone who’s an NHL fan knows.

Of course, the specter of the lockout didn’t dissapear from last night entirely…especially with Donald Fehr in attendance, after meeting with the thirty-two NHL players who participated in last night’s event before the game.  More importantly though, last night’s game gave the fans something they seldom have in labor disputes – a voice.  Whether you agree with the players, owners or think both sides are full of it in this labor dispute, you had to love the ‘We Love Hockey!’ and ‘We Want Hockey!’ chants last night.  Despite Fehr’s presence, the lion’s share of venom was directed towards commissioner Gary Bettman in the middle of his third lockout in two decades, with chants of ‘Fire Bettman!’ and ‘Bettman sucks!’ echoing throughout the arena at times last night as well.

Even if the players and Fehr could take a little secret satisfaction from the Bettman chants, you hope the larger message got through last night.  It certainly had an impact on Stamkos – who admitted he had ‘chills’ listening to the fans – as well as the Flyers’ Scott Hartnell, who helped organize last night’s event and had this to say afterward:

“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get choked up a little bit,” he said. “You have 11,000 people chanting they want hockey back. We want to be playing and it’s unfortunate that we’re not playing right now.”

Even as the fans made their voice heard, there were still moments where partisanship showed and things felt normal again.  Like when James Neal and Aaron Asham got booed by the Flyer fan contingent before the game, after their role in last season’s down-and-dirty first-round series between the Flyers and Pens.  Or the bronx cheers when Marty made a save after giving up the first four goals of the night.  There was even an obligatory ‘Crosby Sucks’ chant, although the Penguin star was not in attendance last night.  Admittedly I was taken aback at first by the idea of booing any of the players at a charity game…but then I realized in a way that the fans just want to have a bit of normalcy back.

As the broadcasters for last night’s game put it, it’s sad that this might be the only hockey (with NHL rosters) we get all season.  And ironic that if it wasn’t for the lockout this charity game couldn’t have happened, since every team would be about a third of the way through an 82-game regular season.  Although the radio guys were clearly Flyer affiliated, they did a good job with the telecast last night mixing normalcy and seriousness, laughing at Flyer goalie Ilya Bryzgalov being demoted to third-string in the KHL, and commenting on the more serious matters as well – particularly taking the TV networks to task for not airing this game.

The radio guys even got an interview with New Jersey governor Chris Christie after the game over what the event meant to the area.  As the postgame ran over a half hour it seemed like they didn’t want to sign off the air, cause this might be ‘it’ for the season.  Clearly the players didn’t want to leave the ice either, lingering for minutes afterwards and raising the sticks before throwing some of them into the crowd.  Last night’s special jerseys will be auctioned off, also for charity.  Hopefully last night won’t be all there is of NHL hockey in 2012-13.  At least some good was acccomplished with all the money raised, and hockey fans finally were able to have a voice in everything that’s going on.