Spezza: Fantastic finish to All-Star Weekend

As part of All-Access All Things All-Star coverage on NHL.com this weekend in Ottawa, Senators forward Jason Spezza will be blogging his thoughts and experiences as one of the player hosts of All-Star Weekend. Here's his final entry, detailing an unbelievable Sunday, including his one-goal, one-assist, minus-5 showing in the 2012 Tim Hortons NHL All-Star Game at Scotiabank Place:

It was a perfect weekend and the result is irrelevant. It was a perfect celebration of the weekend. All of us being together and getting to come and play the game and see the crowd react to Daniel Alfredsson. I got a goal and Milo scored. It was fun to be a part of. I thought the crowd was phenomenal and it would have been nice to get Alfie a hat trick. We were all passing him the puck, believe me. I'm not even thinking about the fact that I was a minus-5. That's gone. It's already gone; I'll never mention it again. It was just a great, great way to cap of a special weekend.

I may play another five years, another 10 years, and I may never have another chance to play an All-Star Game in my home city. It's something that is really special. To play it with three teammates made it more special because we could be together all weekend and do things together all weekend.  It helps that the three of us are really good friends. We're not just teammates, we're really good friends. Like Alf said during his press conference, it hasn't really settled in yet. We're living in the moment and enjoying it and hoping we can use this as springboard into the second half.

I think the city was the star of the event. The way the city stepped up, the events, the Fan Fair, how organized everything was. To a man, if you ask any player in the dressing room, they had a great time. It was really accessible for their families to do stuff. The League and the Senators did an awesome job of running a first-class event and I don't think you will find too many people leaving being disappointed. It was a great thing for Ottawa.

I had my daughter in the dressing room after the game. She might be a little young and never remember any of it, but I wanted to make sure we would have some great pictures. I told my dad I wanted to have her in the room right away because it is one of those moments that you don't know if it is going to happen again and family is really important to me. She has no idea what is going on right now, but she will in a couple of years and I think they will be good memories to look back on.

We're ready to go for the second half. This is just icing on the cake. The real stuff starts now. We play the game for real. It's nice to be recognized as individuals, but we play the game to win. You play for team and you play for your teammates. We feel like we have a good team here in Ottawa. To be honest, this has been an amazing weekend and I'll enjoy it tonight, but I can't wait to get back to work tomorrow.

I'm pretty tired, so we'll see if I shut it down early. I want to see everybody before they leave town because I don't think they will be back for a little while. We'll probably have some alone time after this. My grandparents are here, aunts and uncles, so we'll see family tonight and then definitely have a good sleep.