Michael Bublé says he was on mushrooms at NHL All-Star draft

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In bringing back the player draft to pick its four All-Star teams, the NHL was hoping to launch All-Star weekend in Toronto with a blast.

It was the first time in nearly a decade that the league had asked its All-Star captains to select their squads for the weekend tournament; perhaps the league’s powers that be were hoping for a little hoopla around how the teams would shake out, with teammates perhaps finding themselves pitted against one another, creating some rivalries that wouldn’t otherwise ever see the light of day.

That didn’t happen and the draft was a somewhat dour affair as a result.

Except for Michael Bublé. The Burnaby crooner was on hand at Scotiabank Arena on Thursday night as one of four celebrity captains.

He was, of course, lined up with Quinn Hughes, captain of his favourite team the Vancouver Canucks and one of four All-Star team captains. (Comedian Will Arnett plus singers Tate McRae and Justin Bieber were the other celebrity skippers on hand.)

Bublé energy during the draft was … notable. Always an energetic performer, Bublé on this night was a little more upbeat than usual and perhaps at times a little too upbeat, maybe even a little off-kilter.

After the event was over, Bublé revealed there was a reason for his hyperactivity: he’d taken psychedelic mushrooms before the event.

Asked about how his experiences as a fantasy hockey manager helped him support Hughes on the night, Bublé was frank.

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Sure, he has plenty of hockey knowledge, but the real story, he said, was what he’d ingested at some point before joining Hughes centre-stage.

“My buddy told me this is just a microdose of mushrooms and he was lying,” Bublé told reporters, drawing a broad range of giggles.

“So I’ll be honest, I thought I was in Blades of Glory for most of the time that I was out there until it sort of settled down. And then I realized holy shit, I am at the NHL All-Star game.”

After taking some joshing from Arnett about how talking about a love for fantasy sports was going to end his run as celebrity crush, Bublé quipped that wasn’t the only thing he’d crushed by his performance.

“The mushroom talk lost me all of my contracts,” he joked.

pjohnston@postmedia.com