NHL skills contest serious business
TAMPA, FLA. What’s your favourite memory from the NHL All-Star Game skills competition?
Is it Ray Bourque shattering four targets with four pucks? Mike Gartner flying around the ice? Or Alex Ovechkin putting on a fishing hat and a pair of oversized sunglasses and using two sticks to try to score a goal during a breakaway competition?
If it’s the latter, you’re going to be disappointed with this year’s competition in Tampa. The wigs and Halloween masks are out. So, too, are the events that saw goalies race against each other. On Saturday, it’s all about the competition. Just six events — three old and three new — that will determine who has the hardest shot, who has the most accurate shot, who is the fastest skater, who is the most adept stickhandler, who is the most accurate passer, and which goalie is the best at stopping the top players in the league on a breakaway.
The winner of each event gets US$25,000, plus rights to legitimately say they are the best at that particular skill. “We wanted to go back to honouring guys for their skills,” said Steve Mayer, the NHL’s chief content officer, whose mission is to make the all-star game something we start caring about again.
All-star games and the accompanying skills competitions are a tough sell because the players often don’t try hard. Even when they do, it amounts to a night of watching player after player taking shots or skating alone around the rink.
“I think we’ve done a good job on Saturday of getting the guys that you as a hockey fan would expect in each of the different events,” Mayer said.