Yahoo Sports’ great basketball columnist, Vincent Goodwill, summed up the vibe at the just completed — and mostly listless — NBA All-Star weekend as such: “You can’t manufacture soul.”
This came two weeks after the NFL staged a flag-football game with their Pro Bowlers that was about as exciting as tax preparation. (The highlight may have been a punting competition that went to double overtime.)
Then there was Saturday night in Montreal’s Bell Center, where a wild, rowdy crowd jammed the place for the NHL’s version of an “all-star” event — 4 Nations Face-Off — and a game between the United States and Canada.
“The Star-Spangled Banner” was booed. Three fights broke out in the first nine seconds. “We needed to send a message,” said American Matthew Tkachuk of St. Louis, Missouri, who, along with brother Brady, were among the early combatants. “The message we wanted to send: ‘It’s our time.’”
Soon after, one of the most intense, skilled, thrilling and talent-rich games ever played happened, with the U.S. prevailing 3-1. The Americans celebrated a great victory, although they know this merely advanced them to Thursday’s final in Boston where they may meet the Canadians again.
In an era where leagues are trying to find a way to pump excitement and meaning into the old all-star game concept, the NHL has not only found it, but is ready to have it breathe life into its entire product — which was the original promotional concept of all-star events.
After all, ABC averaged 4.4 million viewers in the U.S., the most for a non-Stanley Cup final since 2019. Every game has been big.
“I think it could inspire another generation of young players to want to play the game,” U.S. coach Mike Sullivan said.
The 4 Nations Face-Off features four teams (U.S., Canada, Sweden, Finland) and eight games, including Thursday’s third-place and championship games. It isn’t technically an exclusively NHL event — the teams are selected and run by each participating country’s national team, i.e. USA Hockey.
However, the NHL shut down for nearly two weeks and allowed NHL players to participate. While some elite talent from Russia, the Czech Republic and other countries are excluded, the national pride for those in the event is through the roof. It’s a mini-Olympics.
“This is the biggest game of my life,” Travis Sanheim of Elkhorn, Manitoba, and the Philadelphia Flyers said before the U.S.-Canada match.
“That was one of the best experiences of my life — just an unbelievable hockey game,” said American Dylan Larkin of Waterford, Michigan, who scored the go-ahead goal and whose day job is captain of the Detroit Red Wings.
Contrast that with the talk from the NBA.
“You cannot force anybody to play hard if he doesn’t want to,” Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo said.
Anyone who has seen Antetokounmpo (or pretty much any NBA player) in a game that mattered knows they will bring the same win-at-all-costs effort as an NHL star. Same with the NFL. The problem is making it matter.
The NHL has cracked the code, leveraging national pride not just from off-season international competition but also the natural chirping that goes on between the four countries with the most NHLers.
“It’s funny: You put the flag behind the meaning of something and guys’ switches just kind of flip,” said Flyers forward Travis Konecny of Clachan, Ontario.
This is about the rarest of opportunities that feels historic.
In the victorious American locker room, for example, players born in the 1990s and 2000s, blared the 1973 Aeorsmith classic “Dream On” because it was featured in the 2004 movie “Miracle” about the 1980 U.S. gold-medal-winning team that they all grew up dreaming of playing for.
“A lot of guys that have a lot of pride playing for USA hockey,” said the New Jersey Devils’ Jack Hughes of Canton, Michigan. “In Miracle On Ice, ‘Dream On’ is like the big song in that.”
The NHL is leaning all in on international competition. Next February it will send its players to the Olympics for the first time since 2014. It also has committed to staging an NHL players-only 2028 World Cup of Hockey (with more countries), as well. In the alternating years, there will be the 4 Nations.
The NBA could try something similar; the 2024 Olympic tournament in Paris was spirited and excellent, after all. Even a USA-vs.-The World single all-star game might return some pop.
It probably can’t match what the NHL has going, though. This was over the top and only promises to get bigger and better. The three early fights received a lot of attention from Saturday — and for good reason — but the play that followed was no less forceful.
Watch the breathtaking speed of the Edmonton Oilers’ Connor McDavid (Newmarket, Ontario) on Canada’s first goal or the care-not, all-in bodycheck that the Boston Bruins’ Charlie McAvoy (Long Beach, New York) delivered on McDavid later in the game. (McAvoy will sit out Monday’s game against Sweden.)
Watch NHL superstars such as Larkin gladly accept a spot on the fourth line or the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Auston Mathews of Scottsdale, Arizona, who scored 69 goals last season, repeatedly change the game with his elite backchecking.
“I thought it was an unbelievable celebration of hockey,” Sullivan said.
This was sport at its absolute pinnacle. No gimmicks. No forced corporate sponsors. No need for celebrity cameos — unless you count intros from Michelle Kwan and Georges St-Pierre.
This was all stars, all in.
And it’s just getting started.
