Although it was disappointing that the U.S. didn’t come out on top last night, the 4 Nations Face-Off itself was far from that. The tournament ended with just as much excitement as it did when it started, far exceeding the expectations of most.
There is no question that the National Hockey League redefined the All-Star break, not just for itself, but for other major sports as well. NHL All-Star viewership and ratings have been sputtering for years, which began shortly after the new millennium. Attempts to spice things up such as 3-on-3 tournaments and skills challenges were enough to garner interest, but failed to satisfy the hunger of its viewers.
All-Star games/weekends have been struggling across all major sports, headlined by a lack of effort and fear of getting injured. To put things in perspective of how bad things have been, the NBA recently reported its second lowest viewership ever after this year’s festivities. The lowest? Only two years ago in 2023. The NFL has seen similar struggles as well, seeing an overall decline since about 2008. The MLB? They’ve seen a steady decline for the past three decades.
To the credit of these leagues, they have tried to revitalize things by putting their thinking caps on to inject some creativity into these events. Yes, some of these ideas have been creative, but simply not creative enough to garner a recurring interest. With all of these leagues attempting and failing at new ideas, it was only a matter of time before one of them was to strike gold. Enter NHL.
When the NHL announced the 4 Nations Face-Off, there were certainly some mixed feelings. Personally, I think this was headed by recency bias of previous All-Star games/events being underwhelming, so naturally, people were fair to feel that way. Then you also have the fact that something like this has never been done before in-season, so many weren’t really sure what to expect, especially with this not being the Winter Olympics or World Cup of Hockey. One can argue that the NHL took a page out of the NBA’s book with an “in-season tournament” approach (similar to the NBA Cup), but to the NHL’s defense, they are not remotely the same thing.
What has set the NHL’s tournament apart from the NBA is you’re having countries compete against each other, which is far different than having regular teams playing against one another. Any time you pit two countries against one another in a competition, and especially during a time where politics has been at the forefront and driver of a lot of feelings and emotion, you have yourself a perfect storm; things become personal. In the hockey world, the Mircale on Ice is the first thing that comes to mind for me, and it fell in the Cold War Era.
It was clear to me this tournament was every bit personal, and you can see that on full display if you watched the games. Tensions were high going in due to what I’ll call the political landscape and the stigma that U.S. hockey carries when compared to Canada.
I think the Tkachuk brothers should be credited with firing the cannons that brought the excitement and meaning of this tournament to a whole different level, orchestrated or not. Those three fights in the first nine seconds will forever go down in hockey lore. They grabbed the attention of so many people who otherwise would have not watched the tournament and that catapulted viewership – because let’s face it, people love hockey fights and what’s better than seeing two players representing their countries duke it out. This tournament had such meaning that even some NHL players have come out to say that they have never played in a more meaningful game in their career. They’re talking about, in theory, an All-Star game! Who would’ve thought? That just shows how much the NHL nailed it this year.
4 Nations Face-Off was nothing but a huge success; arguably the best mid-season event in decades. You’d better believe it has other leagues re-evaluating how they handle their All-Star games/events moving forward after seeing how big of a success this was for the NHL. Frankly, I don’t see anything trumping their level of accomplishment, even if other leagues were to introduce international tournaments of their own.
There is no sport, in my personal opinion, more exciting to watch than hockey, and it has a rapidly growing fanbase so ratings and viewership should continue to rise. This new All-Star break blueprint is what I consider the new standard – not only to get viewership, but to get a full level of effort from the players involved. I really hope the NHL does something similar to this next year, and with the strategic announcement of the World Cup of Hockey in 2028, hockey nation has even more to look forward to now.
Stars Stuff
Congrats, guys!
Congratulations to Thomas Harley, Pete DeBoer, Misha Donskov, and Jim Nill!
— Dallas Stars (@DallasStars) February 21, 2025
Our Stars and #4Nations Champions 🇨🇦 pic.twitter.com/Z8ZtHGDxCc
My sentiments exactly:
I could care less if there was ever an All-Star game again.
— DailyDallasHockey (@DallasStarsDDH) February 21, 2025
This was fantastic#4Nations
Finally
The Stars are back in action tomorrow in New Jersey facing off against the Devils. I’ll actually be at this game so hopefully that brings a little bit of extra luck! 😀