NHL Prepares International Event in Place of All-Star Weekend
The NHL is planning an international event at UBS Arena for next February, instead of the previously announced All-Star Weekend at the home of the New York Islanders. This decision comes after the successful staging of the 4 Nations Face-Off international tournament earlier this year.
Commissioner Gary Bettman has mentioned on several occasions that the league has been reconsidering what to do with the event, following the success of the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament.
“It’s going to be a spectacular international event.”
Source of the league
The initial idea was to use New York as a starting point for Milan, allowing players to depart from there to participate in the Olympic Games for the first time since 2014.
“We know we’ve set the bar high, which should be a good thing, not a problem. We’ll make sure to do something. We’ll have an event at UBS before going to the Olympics, but then we’ll do something that focuses more on a major hockey event for the following year.”
Gary Bettman
Bettman also noted that the league is “reevaluating how we want to do things because I think we’ve raised the bar as high as it can go for an All-Star game in any sport.” He added that they want to make sure that any future event lives up to the standards created.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul expressed her disappointment at the decision to hold a Winter Olympics kickoff event instead of the All-Star Weekend, and requested the league to “bring a hockey event with equal or greater economic activity and cultural value to the region in 2027.”
Bettman clarified that Hochul’s office did not contact the league before publishing its letter, and that the league is committed to holding events in February 2026 and 2027 at UBS Arena.
“With the players going to the Olympics, we started to focus on the fact that maybe, what we decided to do, they would be more focused on getting to Milan. So we said we will do a different event to kick off the fact that we are going to the Olympics and then we will bring an ‘All-Star event’, whatever that is, the following year, back to Long Island. So they are actually going to have two series of events, not one.”
Gary Bettman
The 4 Nations Face-Off tournament, which featured teams from the United States, Canada, Sweden, and Finland, drew crowds and excellent ratings, leading the NHL to consider different options for mid-season festivities.
