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The NHL’s move to three-on-three overtime hockey is pretty much universally accepted as being the coolest rule change the league – who aren’t always known for making everyone happy at the same time.
Yesterday, they took the excitement a step further, announcing that the regularly retooled NHL All Star Game is – yep, you guessed it – being retooled once more.
Now, instead of seeing one regular game featuring three periods and five skaters on the ice for either side next year in Nashville, we’ll get to see three 20-minute games, each of them a three-on-three contest.
This is a fantastic move by the NHL. They’ve tried various sorts of concepts – East versus West, North America versus the World and, more recently, teams picked by voted captains in a draft-type situation – in an effort to make us all forget that the annual celebration is about half-speed.
It is an exhibition affair with nary a defensive poke check to be seen, and more chance of a snowball surviving in hell than we have of seeing any serious body checking. Oh, and then there’s the goals – lots of them. Too many of them. And remember the Columbus weekend? That cannon deafened everyone far too often.
The goal fest sort of wrecks the fun, a little, but what can you do? General managers hate letting their players go to the Olympics, a world-renowned event, and we’ve got no chance they’d let their star players take part in an All Star Game with contact. In fact, I’d venture to say there’s more chance of NHL players competing in the next Olympics than there is of serious hitting in an All Star Game.
While we’re still likely to see no defence, half-speed skating and lots of goals – but not, thankfully, that cannon – that make the best goalies in the world look inept, at least the injection of the three-on-three element will convince me to tune in and watch.
None of us can honestly deny how exciting three-on-three hockey is, and it’s certainly opened up the ice in the extra frame, leading to more glorious overtime winners – a wonderful thing – and less unpopular shootouts – also a wonderful thing. So imagine what might happen on All Star Night, when players are renowned for digging into their bag of tricks.
There’s more good news: the All Star Skills competition remains. I honestly think there would’ve been a riot had commissioner Gary Bettman cancelled what has become a Saturday night staple on All Star Weekend. We all love it. In fact, I always make a point of watching the skills contest even if I know that there’s absolutely no chance I’ll watch the game the following night, and I doubt I’m alone in that regard.
I’m constantly in awe of what the NHL’s best can do on the ice in any given game situation, and seeing them do even more stupendous things – how on earth can they shoot a puck into a small hole barely bigger than the puck itself and, more often than not, do it first or second go?
Sadly, the Friday night draft where two team captains pick their teams is gone. Apparently the players didn’t like the concept, but I did. You hear the occasional complaint that hockey players don’t have the same broad personalities as NBA or NFL stars, and the draft was a perfect time and place for the game’s brightest stars to relax and have a good time.
More importantly, TSN’s camera would capture them doing so, and there were some great moments, such as the last player being picked, the Sedin twins being split up, and other fun occurrences that we won’t get this year. Or any year going forward, it seems.
Even so, there’s no doubt that the NHL have made enough changes to spice up the All Star Weekend. The three-on-three games are going to be fantastic, and the Saturday night skills contest is always memorable. Well done, commissioner Bettman, you’ve done enough to make me tune in and watch.
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