All-Star Solution?

One of the few benefits of this shortened season is the lack of the All-Star Game. The All-Star Game is something that most "hockey people" don't like, in fact most watch it just to make jokes on Twitter. I know this because I follow hundreds of "hockey people" on Twitter. Most of my friends however are casual fans, and they also don't really care about the All-Star Game. The bottom line is that the Stanley Cup Playoffs and the Winter Classic rightfully are the events that fans care about.

The All-Star Game may also be becoming more rare. I'm expecting the NHL to continue its participation in the Winter Olympics which take place every four years. Now, several people including Elliotte Friedman are reporting that a World Cup of Hockey could also take place every four years in the winter. Greg Wyshynski of Puck Daddy, expertly covers it here.

So, that's 2 out of ever four years that the All-Star Game will be eliminated. The game isn't about to disappear in those other two years. It's important to sponsors and host cities. However, I've got an idea to make it a bit more interesting in the future and it revolves around the NHL's proposed realignment last year.

My idea is to turn the event into a tournament. Each of the four conferences would get an All-Star Team. Friday night would be the Skills Competition, with the four teams competing for seeding. Saturday would feature two games; one between the first seeded team and the fourth seeded team; the second between the second seeded team and third seeded team. The winning two teams would then play one final game Sunday.

This would allow more players to participate, and create two more games for the NHL to make money on. It would very much become a weekend event and could be called the All-Star Tournament. It could help with the philosophy of making the NHL more event oriented.

The cons would be some players would make the All-Star tournament who many may not consider to be stars - but I don't really think that's a problem as there's always ton of great players who don't get invited. The other con would be the recently added fantasy draft would no longer work.

These are just some initial thoughts about what to do with the All-Star Game. What do you think?