NHL's New All-Star Game Event Might Actually Be OK

Loved by a lot and hated by many, the NHL recently decided to shake up its All-Star weekend skills competition by axing the ever-polarizing breakaway challenge.

To replace what has (arguably) developed into the skills competition's flagship event the past couple seasons, the league is introducing an equally intriguing yet gimmicky replacement for 2017, the four line challenge.

To be honest, at first glance this looked like a new event called the "fourth line challenge." Picturing a bunch of borderline NHLers mucking and grinding it out over the 'dump and change' and 'high off the glass' challenges would be exhilarating to say the least. Rather, we have to watch the best scorers in the game put their shooting and skill to the test in a team-style competition that will measure accuracy from all areas of the ice. Fine.

A team shooting and accuracy contest that will (in contrast to the breakaway challenge, at least) have a little bit of skill involved is generally a good thing for a competition with the word 'skills' preceding its name. The event promises to be an exciting, on-ice, hockey version of darts or beer pong—minus the stale, cigarette-filled PBR spilling all over the carpet.

As is any event in a skills competition (minus the hardest shot, which is the purest measure of a man's soul), there will be an interesting mix of both skill and gimmick. The goalies even get to shoot in this one, which, if you ask any of them, is a welcome change from playing the role of the token pylons of All-Star weekend as the league tries to put its best offensive show on display year after year.

The four line challenge looks like this: Four teams consisting of four players each. First shooters will shoot from the near blue line in an attempt to score in the upper part of the net. Second shooters try from centre, third shooters from the far blue line, and fourth shooters take aim from the far goal line. Points are awarded based on distance and which part of the net each player scores in. Captains can even substitute the fourth shooter for a goalie, with a successful shot by a netminder being worth 20 points for their team.

To add a bit of Hollywood flavour to the 2017 skills competition in Los Angeles, NHL legends will face celebrities in a shinny-like game set to tee-up the rest of Saturday's events, which includes the challenge relay, fastest skater, shot accuracy, hardest shot, and shootout competitions.

Of course, that all sounds fine and dandy. All we really want, though, is more John Scott.