NHL All-Star Weekend and Centennial Celebration kicks off tonight
Listen to this articleThe NHL All-Star Weekend is ready to get started. This is the Centennial Celebration of the National Hockey League, and the 50th Anniversary of the Los Angeles Kings. The league and the team have a lot in store for hockey fans coming to the NHL Fan Fair.
If you’re heading down to L.A. Live and the Convention Center for the Fan Fair, it opens at 5 p.m. and closes at 10 p.m. There will be the Slap Shot Challenge, the Autograph Stage, the video game center with the EA Sports NHL 17, as well as the EA Sports NHL 17 Rink where fans can try out their skating skills and watch the NHL Mascot Showdown.
Also at the Fan Fair is the Hockey Hall of Fame Exhibit that brings the Toronto, Canada-based museum to Los Angeles for the All-Star Weekend, the Kids Zone, with hockey activities for the smallest fans, NHL Auctions and may more things to do while taking in the action at the Los Angeles Convention Center. You can even get your photo taken on a Zamboni.
And not to worry, fans can buy all the NHL gear they could ever imagine at the Fan Fair.
The big show tonight though is the NHL 100, which takes place at the Microsoft Theater. To commemorate the league’s centennial, they are counting down the top 100 NHL players of all time. Many of them will be at the Microsoft Theater for this event so be sure to watch NBCSN or Sportsnet to catch it, if you’re not going to be at the theater itself. That will get started at 6:30 p.m.
The NHL has also announced the assignments for NHL All-Stars Skills Competition. The top stars from the Atlantic and Metropolitan Divisions will compete against the Pacific and Central for points in the overall division vs. division competition to determine opponent and start time of their first game on Sunday. Individual champions in each competition will also will be crowned.
The four team captains, Carey Price of the Atlantic Division, P.K. Subban of the Central Division, Sidney Crosby of the Metropolitan Division and Connor McDavid of the Pacific Division, guided the selection process for all of the participants in these various skills:
- Gatorade NHL Skills Challenge Relay
- Honda NHL Four Line Challenge
- DraftKings NHL Accuracy Shooting
- Bridgestone NHL Fastest Skater
- Oscar Mayer NHL Hardest Shot
- Discover NHL Shootout
You can click here for the complete list of players taking part in the Skills Competition and here for the list of players selected for the All-Star Game. Cam Fowler and Ryan Kesler are representing the Anaheim Ducks, and Drew Doughty and Jeff Carter will be skating on their home ice representing the Los Angeles Kings.
One update: Right Wing Cam Atkinson of the Columbus Blue Jackets has been added to the All-Star Game roster for the Metropolitan Division to replace Center Evgeni Malkin of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Malkin missed Thursday’s game with the Boston Bruins with a lower body injury and the team will have an update on his status after the All-Star break.
If you have a Twitter account, check out our Twitter contest to win two tickets to the NHL All-Star Game Sunday.
Photos by Claudia Gestro
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