Does the NHL need to restructure its Skills Competition?
On Monday’s edition of Daily Faceoff Live, hosts Frank Seravalli and Mike McKenna fielded a question on how the NHL could improve on an often cheesy and bizarre weekend of All-Star festivities.
Seravalli and McKenna agreed that a more hockey-centric Skills Competition would better show off the league’s stars.
Frank Seravalli: Mike, we were just talking about All-Star Weekend. How do you fix it? What would be the tweak that you would make in order to make it better?
Mike McKenna: It’s pretty simple. Go back to the future and get rid of all the BS. That skills comp took forever, it was disjointed. Make it focused, make it fast. Speed it up, in and out with the skills comps. Go back and look at the 1999 skills competition. Take out the ridiculous goalie goals segment. Then you’re looking at: puck control relay, fastest skater, hardest shot, rapid fire, accuracy shooting, and breakaway relay. These are the hallmarks of hockey. You need those to show what the players can do. Put the helmets on for the fastest skater event so they don’t feel scared out there to go their fastest, and let’s see what they can do.
What a terrible skills comp.
First off you have Erik Karlsson not even taking part and just sitting there, even tho he has the most points as a d man.
2nd, what happened to save streak? Now it’s tandem goalie thing? BRUTAL
Lastly, mcdavid goes 8 for 8 in shooting and looses…
Frank Seravalli: I actually liked the two cutaway events, which were the splash shot and the golf challenge, but it’s not great for in-person viewing. You’re sitting in the arena and they say “now we’re going to go to this.” No one wants just to sit here and watch TV in the darkness of the arena, so it is a little bit strange. Some of the stuff they do feels forced, some of the skits that they had whether it was Happy Gilmore or the Miami Vice Mitch Marner thing. If you have someone who is truly, genuinely, authentically funny, then by all means give them a microphone and let them have a day. If not, don’t try to force it. I understand it’s a made-for-TV event and not everything works, full marks to them for trying, but you’re right. Shorten it, make it an hour and a half, not over three hours. That’s expensive TV time that these networks are banking on, but the product ultimately would be a lot better off.
You can watch the entire episode here…