NEW YORK – The NHL has canceled an Olympic send-off event scheduled for February at the New York Islanders’ stadium and plans to hold the All-Star weekend festivities there in 2027, according to ESPN’s Emily Kaplan on Tuesday night.
The UBS Arena was announced to host the 2026 All-Star weekend, when the league thought it would experiment with the event as a starting point for players, coaches, and staff to gather there and fly from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Milan.
The great success of the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament earlier this year led officials to wonder how much sense it made to have a traditional All-Star weekend with a skills competition and a game or the 3-on-3 tournament that has become a fixture for the mid-season hockey event for almost a decade. The NBA altered its format to a USA vs. the World game as a way to mix things up.
NHL officials had said the Islanders would likely get the All-Star Game in the odd year between the return to the Olympics and the 2028 World Cup of Hockey. The hope is to use the weekend of February 5-7, 2027 for that.
