Throughout the United States, hockey has historically not been the most popular of sports. Many people think of the big professional leagues as the National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB), and the National Basketball Association (NBA). The National Hockey League (NHL) is generally considered to be the fourth most popular of the big four major sports in the United States. However, hockey is now starting to trend in an upwards direction.
In mid February this year, the NHL hosted the Four Nations Face Off. This tournament was created in substitution for the annual NHL All Star games. The All Star games in the past consisted of small skills competitions and as well as a tournament of games based on the divisions in the NHL. This year, the Four Nations Face Off was set into place instead including the nations of Canada, Sweden, Finland, and the United States of America. Each nation selected their roster of players from the NHL talent based on their backgrounds and they competed in a tournament. This sparked a lot of attention to the sport of hockey because it involved more people. People from these countries were able to display their pride for their country and the NHL stars were competing vigorously to take home the honor of being champions.
This was the first ever Four Nations Face Off tournament hosted by the NHL and it created the most watched hockey game in history for the championship game. According to the NHL website, the game had over 16.1 million viewers which is by far the most watched game with the next closest game to that in recent history being the seventh game of the Stanley Cup Finals last year between the Edmonton Oilers and the Florida Panthers. The championship game in the Four Nations Face Off was between the United States and Canada who already had a thrilling match earlier in the tournament during the round robin stage. With the Political changes in office taking place in both nations, there has been a lot of chaos created between the two countries sparking a lot of pride for fans to cheer for their countries and even caused some national anthem incidents.
In my experience as a hockey fan living in the United States, hockey has never been something that is talked about much here and is very unknown to most people my age. However, I was able to see firsthand the effect the tournament had on people based on noticings from my friends. It became a major talking point at school and for me, a major argument topic. With my Canadian background, I was supporting Canada as the tournament was going on which sparked a lot of conversations with other students and get them more interested in rooting for their teams. Many of my friends had never seen a hockey game in their life before that championship game and ended up realizing it is a pretty entertaining sport to watch.
Another important thing to consider when talking about the NHL’s decision to substitute out the NHL All Star Games is the players interest. The players that would get invited to the skills competitions and to play for their division’s teams often didn’t care much about winning and it really never had that competitive nature to it which doesn’t make it entertaining to watch whatsoever for fans. The opportunity for these players to go represent their countries and try to bring a trophy back to their country increases the competitive nature of the competition and the demand for fans to watch it. This is why the NHL was able to get so much attention to the tournament and this is clearly the tradition that needs to be upheld for the future.
For the honor and interest of both the players and the fans, this needs to be the continued tradition for the NHL to put on every year during the all star break. This tournament was great for the sport of hockey and provided fans with a lot more insight on how great of a sport hockey really is. As of now, the tournament is said to be taking place again next year so we can hope this is set to continue as the sport of hockey continues to grow throughout the United States and really the whole world.
