It’s been a while since I’ve paid attention to the NHL All-Star Game, and this weekend’s festivities in Toronto were no exception. All I watched was a short interview between Ron McLean of SportsNet and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman. If you listened, you’d think everything was hunky dory at the All-Star Game, as long as you didn’t notice a lone dissenter: Tampa Bay Lightning winger Nikita Kucherov.
On Friday night at the skills competition, Kucherov, the league’s leading scorer, didn’t exactly bring the fire to his time on the ice, annoying the fans in Toronto as well as NHL wunderkind, Connor McDavid, who won the competition and $1 million.
While the NHL’s “twitteratti” didn’t hesitate to bury Kucherov, I come to praise him. I admire the folks inside the NHL who have done their best to infuse some life into a tired old format, but Kucherov’s listless performance is indicative of the fact that it’s time to retire the NHL All-Star Game, at least for a while. Let’s find a new event to grow the game while still providing the league an opportunity to wine and dine its sponsors, which is the real point of All-Star Weekend.
Back in 2008 — my how time flies — ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski, then with Puck Daddy, asked me to write a “listicle” about the five things I’d change about the NHL. Number four on my punch list was revamping the NHL All-Star Game by reviving the original format of pitting the defending Stanley Cup champions against a team of All-Stars representing the rest of the league. Moreover, I’d move the game to the week before the start of the regular season, positioning the event as an alert to sports fans that the game has returned to the ice after its Summer break.
I think it’s something the game needs. The sports calendar is incredibly crowded when the NHL returns every October. MLB is deep into its expanded playoffs, the NFL and college football are several weeks into their own regular seasons, and it’s only a matter of weeks before the NBA and NCAA basketball return too.
Getting a fan’s attention in the midst of that sort of chaos is challenging, if not impossible. But if you give the sports media a reason to pay attention, and you create an event where all of the game’s biggest stars will appear, they have a reason to come and remind casual fans that hockey is back.
So what to do about the traditional All-Star break that hockey players have grown accustomed to? There’s no reason you can’t keep it, and instead replace that date on the calendar — which the NHL slots into the weekend between the NFL conference championships and the Super Bowl — with the NHL Winter Classic.
Yes, I know that game has been traditionally played on New Year’s Day. It was a brilliant move at the beginning, as college football and the BCS had sucked all of the air out of what had been an exclusive domain. But with the advent of the 4-team College Football Playoff and now its expansion to 12 teams, New Year’s Day matters to the college game again. Times change, and there’s no shame in vacating New Year’s Day for a spot on the calendar that’s more advantageous.
Think of it this way: would you rather program against college football on New Year’s Day, or the Pro Bowl Games the week before the Super Bowl? I think it’s an easy call.
There will be some issues with two teams having to play while the rest of the league is dark, but it isn’t something the schedule makers can’t overcome with some creativity.
And once again, thanks to Mr. Kucherov for pointing out what ice hockey’s talking heads won’t say out loud: the time for change is now.