NHL All-Star Game Tournament Concept Idea

[hockey week]

The NHL All-Star Game is useless. Nobody watches, nobody cares. The NHL is clearly willing to mess with things considering the new fantasy draft format. Now with four conferences and no requirement for East/West play, things should be changed.

How do you make things interesting? Make the game matter, and not in the annoying way the MLB does.

I'm talking a tournament.

But nobody would watch a bunch of All-Star Games.

So we have a series of 30-minute games, two 15-minute periods with a 5 minute commercial break in between. Winner moves on. Games are 20 minutes apart for a break, some analysis, and commercials, leading to 90 minutes of hockey and 55 minutes of down time for all of the fanfare. If that's too much, I'm sure it could be reduced to two 10-minute periods with a break for ads and make it like a normal game's time frame.

Teams made up of 2 centers, 2 left wings, 2 right wings, 4 defensemen, and 1 goalie and a coach from that conference only.

Brackets are set up to match the playoff format for that year.

Each conference has a color scheme and a generic jersey. These can switch up every few years, different pattern for each to encourage sales. However, these were picked specifically that no color scheme or jersey pattern would reflect one of the teams within that conference.

Without further ado:

[hockey week]

I realized that the logos are small and don't do well even when zoomed, so I put them separately here.

They're simple and corporate, as the NHL will likely do. I'd like to name the new conferences after players, but can't imagine Toronto and Boston playing in the Richard Conference, or Montreal and Toronto in the Orr Conference, or Philly and New Jersey in the Lemieux Conference, and so on. I simply couldn't rectify it.

I also wanted to make sure no logo's colors reflected any one team in that Conference (or are they being called Divisions and I'm wrong throughout here?). For instance, there aren't any royal blue/silver teams out west, and no black and gold teams in the Central, and so on.

[Vaytch]

^ What he said. Although, I still like the idea of a mini divisional tournament !

[hockey week]

I thought the playoff format was that the top 4 teams in each division would play one another, and then the winners would be reseeded for the semis and finals? That there wouldn't be any specific East/West conferences needed?

Either way, this all star format is for each of the four divisions to be independent of one another

[kevsim1]

I thought the playoff format was that the top 4 teams in each division would play one another, and then the winners would be reseeded for the semis and finals? That there wouldn't be any specific East/West conferences needed?

Either way, this all star format is for each of the four divisions to be independent of one another

No, there is an eastern and western conference. The winner of each of the eastern conference divisions play each other. You couldn't, for example, have Toronto play Pittsburgh in the cup final, the SCF will remain east vs west.

[Jer15]

Ok....so it becomes a division-based thing instead of a conference-based thing.

Either way, I really like this idea. Speaking from a personal standpoint I could care less about the all star game. The draft is easily the best part. I liked the players being miced at first as well but it became quite clear (outside of Tim Thomas) the players aren't really adding any special insight.

This might be a great way to generate some interest back to the all star game.

[hockey week]

I thought the playoff format was that the top 4 teams in each division would play one another, and then the winners would be reseeded for the semis and finals? That there wouldn't be any specific East/West conferences needed?

Either way, this all star format is for each of the four divisions to be independent of one another

No, there is an eastern and western conference. The winner of each of the eastern conference divisions play each other. You couldn't, for example, have Toronto play Pittsburgh in the cup final, the SCF will remain east vs west.

I just looked into it and what I read before must have been speculation or something. I thought that was the best feature of the realignment, that New York and Boston could play each other for the cup, or LA and Chicago, or however. That's a pity, really. It would have been really different and fun to see.

Well then, for this, the All-Star Game goes divisional.

[HawkeyHouse]

This is a cool idea. I like it, good job.