What is it?
The All-Star Game is a competition of all things hockey. It includes an elimination 3-on-3 tournament with 4 games of 2 10-minute halves. In hockey time, that’s short – NHL games normally consist of 3 periods, with the players skating for a total of 60 minutes. So, the All-Star Game proposes the challenge of leaving it all on the ice, rotating lines, and making moves at an even faster pace. There are eight events in total, where points are earned by skill.
Who plays?
The competition is divided into 4 teams, each with a captain, an assistant captain, and a celebrity captain. (Fun, right?) Additionally, 12 All-Stars were drafted by a fan-based vote. The teams will then draft from that pool to create 11-player teams (9 skaters and 2 goalies). The 4 teams are:
- Team Matthews
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- Captain: Forward Auston Matthews (Toronto Maple Leafs)
- Assistant captain: Defenseman Morgan Rielly (Toronto Maple Leafs)
- Celebrity captain: Justin Bieber
- Team McDavid
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- Captain: Forward Connor McDavid (Edmonton Oilers)
- Assistant captain: Forward Leon Draisaitl (Edmonton Oilers)
- Celebrity captain: Will Arnett
- team hughes
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- Captain: Forward Jack Hughes (New Jersey Devils)
- Assistant captain: Forward Elias Pettersson (Vancouver Canucks)
- Celebrity captain: Michael Bublé
- Team Mackinnon
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- Captain: Forward Nathan Mackinnon (Colorado Avalanche)
- Assistant captain: Defenseman Cale Makar (Colorado Avalanche)
- Celebrity captain: Tate McRae
Format
Each player will compete in 4 of the first 6 events: fastest skater, hardest shot, stick handling, one-timers, passing challenge, and accuracy shooting. Per 5Chicago News, “the top eight players through six events will advance to the seventh: the shootout. Going from eighth place to first place, players will pick from the eight All-Star goalies one at a time and go head-to-head against them. The shootout will follow the same scoring as the first six events”: first place is worth 5 points, second place is worth 4… you get the jist. The top six players will then take on the final event: the obstacle course. The event includes all prior skills and is worth double the points.
Where is it?
This year, the All-Star Weekend will be hosted by the Toronto Maple Leafs at their home rink, Scotiabank Arena. The festivities begin February 1st and end February 3rd. You can watch it Friday, Feb. 2 (7 p.m. ET, ESPN and ESPN+). The All-Star Game will finish off the festivities on Saturday, Feb. 3 (3 p.m. ET, ABC and ESPN+), says ESPN.
So what?
So… the player with the most points wins $1 million! But most importantly, there is nothing better than every aspect of the game of hockey thrown into one weekend. You don’t have to be a hockey person to appreciate all that the sport has to offer.