The 2024 NHL All-Star Game will be played in Toronto and the league announced on Monday that they’re going to try and spice things up for this year’s event. The biggest news is that the player draft, which has spawned many memes in the past, will be returning.
The overall event has now been expanded to three days, starting on Thursday with the draft, a ceremony to honor members of the 1967 Toronto Maple Leafs, and a 3-on-3 event with players from the Professional Women’s Hockey League.
The usual Friday Skills Competition and Saturday All-Star Game will then follow.
In 2024, #NHLAllStar Weekend starts on Thursday. 😎
📝 @TimHortons NHL All Star Player Draft
🎉 @NHLAlumni Man of the Year
🏆 The @CanadianTire @thepwhlofficial 3-on-3 ShowcaseWatch on @ESPN, @ESPNPlus & @Sportsnet pic.twitter.com/TEG73bjhaM
— NHL (@NHL) November 28, 2023
The draft returns but with a twist. After captains are chosen for all four teams, the league will be pairing each of them with a celebrity hockey fan. Those celebrities and the captains will then choose their team until there are just four players remaining.
A “special guest” will then arrive and assign those players to their respective teams. Perhaps, so that the league can avoid having any player actually selected last like Phil Kessel was back in 2011.
The hope is that more moments, like Alex Ovechkin’s quest for a free car at the 2015 draft, will come about from letting the players run the show again.
“That dynamic (of player and celebrity) this time around is going to be really fun, very unique,” Steve Mayer, the NHL’s Chief Content Officer told ESPN’s Kristen Shilton. “We’re looking for humor in these events, we’re looking to bring out the player personality, we’re looking at something that is going to be memorable. We’ve learned from doing it in the past.”
A lot of the upcoming changes to the game’s format have come after the league sought feedback from its players after some recent events have fell short in terms of entertainment. The biggest culprit of that, the Skills Competition, is reportedly going through a full revamp.
The chosen events will go back to being more hockey-based after featuring things like golf and a dunk tank during last year’s show appear to not have been received well.
“Part of the skills changes are after conversations with our players. We don’t want to just assume that we’re good,” Mayer said. “We always feel like we can be better. So, we talked to the players, we talked to the fans, we’re talking to our broadcasters, we get a lot of input. We don’t need to make changes for the sake of changing but sometimes it just feels right, especially when you’ve done something for (so many) years in a row. And this year it just felt right. They’re not dramatic changes; they’re subtle changes that at the end of the day, we think will improve the event.”
There will also still be a fan voting element for picking certain players to participate beginning in early January. Twelve players will be selected from that process. After that, the league will announce its player and celebrity captains.
Here’s the NHL’s full press release:
2024 NHL All-Star Weekend Expanded to Three-Day Event
NEW YORK (Nov. 27, 2023) – The 2024 NHL® All-Star Weekend, hosted by the Toronto Maple Leafs at Scotiabank Arena, will be expanded to a three-day event, the National Hockey League® announced today. In addition to the NHL All-Star Skills™ presented by DraftKings Sportsbook on Friday, Feb. 2, 2024 and the Rogers NHL® All-Star Game on Saturday, Feb. 3, 2024, the All-Star Weekend celebration will feature “NHL All-Star Thursday” on Feb. 1, 2024.
NHL All-Star Thursday will also take place at Scotiabank Arena, starting at 6 p.m. ET, and will include the Tim Hortons NHL All-Star Player Draft, the NHL Alumni Man of the Year, Honouring the 1967 Toronto Maple Leafs, and the Canadian Tire PWHL 3-on-3 Showcase. NHL All-Star Thursday will be televised on Sportsnet in Canada. In the U.S., the Tim Hortons NHL All-Star Player Draft will be on ESPN, and the rest of the event will be on ESPN+.
The 2024 NHL All-Star Fan Vote will return in January, enabling fans to select 12 players to complete the All-Star rosters.
The Tim Hortons NHL All-Star Player Draft represents the return of a concept that was an entertaining and engaging element of previous All-Star Weekends. The captains of the four All-Star teams, who will be paired with celebrity captains, will select their teams from the remaining pool of All-Star players, in a televised draft on NHL All-Star Thursday.
Following the Tim Hortons NHL All-Star Player Draft will be a ceremony announcing the NHL Alumni Keith Magnuson Man of the Year, which will serve as a tribute to the Stanley Cup-winning 1966-67 Toronto Maple Leafs Club. The Keith Magnuson Man of the Year is presented annually to a former NHL Player who has applied the intangibles of perseverance, commitment and teamwork developed through the game into a successful post-career transition. There have been 21 previous honorees.
Capping off NHL All-Star Thursday will be the Canadian Tire PWHL 3-on-3 Showcase, featuring elite players from the Professional Women’s Hockey League, the top professional league in women’s hockey, in a 3-on-3 game showdown in front of the crowd at Scotiabank Arena.
The roots of the NHL All-Star Game were formed in Toronto. In 1934, Maple Leaf Gardens hosted the ‘All-Star’ game, serving as a benefit fundraiser for Maple Leafs forward Ace Bailey, who suffered a career-ending injury during the 1933-34 season. Thirteen years later, the Maple Leafs hosted the first official NHL All-Star Game in 1947, which called for the defending Stanley Cup champion to play against a selection of All-Stars from the other five teams. The 2024 event will mark the ninth time the Maple Leafs and Toronto host NHL All-Star activities and the first time since 2000.
Tickets to NHL All-Star Thursday will go on sale Tuesday, Dec. 5, at 10 a.m. ET via Ticketmaster, the official ticketing partner of the NHL. Fans can sign up to receive news and updates on All-Star Thursday at https://events.nhl.com/event/2024-nhl-all-star-thursday-night.
Screenshot via TSN
