As most hockey fans know, this past weekend was the NHL’s All Star Weekend. For those who do not know what this is; it is the weekend where the best players in the NHL go to compete in a series of challenges, play in a game, and partake in the media frenzy. The All Stars are split, according to the team they play for, into the East and the West.
The weekend starts off with mascot competitions on the Friday night. Each of the teams’ mascots competes in a series of games that are meant to get children more invested in the event. These take place throughout the entire weekend. The mascots competed in three legged races, musical chairs, and dance offs. The West won this event in the final dance off.
Saturday night is the Skills Competition. The Skills Competition is a series of challenges that members from the West and the East compete. The categories in this year’s competition included: Fastest Skater, Hardest Shot, Accuracy, Breakaway Challenge, Relay Race, and Shootout. To find the Fastest Skater, the players are pitted against each other in a sprint. The winner was a local Detroit Red Wings player, Dylan Larkin, with a time of 12.894 seconds. This brought the score to 4-1 for the East. Larkin (East) was given the opportunity to skate the full length of the ice in an attempt to break the record set by Mike Gartner in 1996 with a speed of 14.386 seconds. He managed to gain the bonus point for the East by beating the time with a lap of 14.172 seconds, making the score: East – 5, West – 1.
The Breakaway Challenge is always a fan favourite. This is where members of each team get the opportunity to be creative. Each player gets two opportunities to show their most creative breakaway. Brent Burns (West) got creative with his first shot by bring his son, his teammate (Pavelski), and Pavelski’s son out to shoot on the net. For his second shot, he put on a Chewbacca mask. James Neal (West) started off his Breakaway Challenge with a shot flipped over the net, and a second puck dropped from his glove. His second shot brought country singer, Dierks Bentley, out to go on a breakaway with him. PK Subban (East) made an interesting hacky sack breakaway with the puck for his first shot. The winning breakaway was his second shot-a tribute the Jaromir Jagr (East). This brought the score to: East – 7, West – 1.
The third challenge is the Accuracy Challenge. Tavares (East) had the lowest time of the 8 shooters, which was 12.294 seconds, where he hit four for five shots. Pavelski (West), Perry (West), and Malkin (East) were the other winners of their heats. This brought the score to: East – 9, West – 3.
The relay race brings all the players together to use their strengths in shooting, stick handling, passing, and skating. Each team goes twice- once with their right handed shooters and once with their left handed shooters. The East came out on top with their right handed shooters with a time of 1:38:410, while the West won the left handed shooters with a time of 1:27:687. Since the West had the best time overall, this brought the score to: East – 10, West – 5.
Hardest shot allows the players to show their strength by firing a puck as hard as they can on the net. Even though there were many hard shots from all the players, Shea Weber (West) was by far the hardest shot with 108.1MPH. This made the score: East – 12, West – 8.
The last event is the NHL Shootout. This is where the players do a shootout style of speed shooting. Six players from each team have 2 minutes to score as many goals as possible. The final score of the competition was: East – 29, West – 12.
The final part of the weekend is the All Star Game. This year the format was changed to three on three, and a series of three games. The first game was the Metro and the Atlantic, which ended in a score of 4-3. This win for the Atlantic put them in the final against the winner of the next game. The Pacific vs the Central game resulted in a 9-6 win for the Pacific. This included two goals from John Scott. The final game, Pacific vs Atlantic, saw only one goal by Corey Perry to put the Pacific in first place. John Scott won the MVP for the weekend.