No Other Major Professional Sports League Could Replicate What The NHL Has Done With The 4 Nations Face-Off
Minas Panagiotakis. Getty Images.It's pretty safe to say the NHL's 4 Nations Face-Off has been a massive success so far. It's the first time in a long time the NHL has figured out a way to put together an event that transcends the game of hockey. You have millions of people tuning into a hockey game who never really gave a shit about hockey before. It's not like all of those people are going to be hooked on the sport forever now, but if you can retain at least a percentage of all those new fans? Well then the NHL is going to be in a great spot moving forward. And it's all thanks to having the brains and balls to pivot away from a traditional all-star game, and put on an international exhibition to allow the best players in the world to represent their country for the first time in a while.
The 4 Nations Face-Off isn't without its own flaws. It would be great to have Russia involved. Maybe put a few more teams in there and they could actually turn this into a tournament, instead of just a round robin event with the top 2 teams playing for a championship. It's not the perfect event, but it's a massive step in the right direction for the NHL.
So much so that everyone is using the 4 Nations Face-Off as an example of what all the other major professional leagues in North America need to do to replace their all-star games. The Pro Bowl has literally turned into flag football, you can't pay guys enough to play a lick of defense in the NBA All-Star Game, and the MLB All-Star Game is just a chance for everyone to enjoy a nice summer night without having any sports to watch. Everyone seems to think these other leagues can just take this idea from the NHL, and their all-star game problems will be solved.
I'm sorry, but no. That's just not true. Let's just start off by talking about why this has worked so well for the NHL so far, and then you can think about if any of this would apply to any of the other major pro leagues.
Firstly, all of these teams have a bunch of dudes on their roster who understand and appreciate how much of an honor and privilege it is to play for your country. They're all a bunch of sickos who have grown up their whole lives dreaming about wearing the jersey of their homeland. And they know that the name on the front of the jersey means a helluva lot more than the one on the back. Just listen to Drew Doughty here real quick. This is a guy who has won 2 Stanley Cups, and a Norris Trophy. He's accomplished everything there is to accomplish as an NHL defenseman, yet he's still willing to do whatever is needed from him for his country.
Jack Eichel is a Stanley Cup Champion. He's a superstar in this league, and he's calling this championship game on Thursday possibly the biggest game he's ever played in.
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These are guys who have so much pride in playing for their country, and know how much it means to everyone who has played before them and everyone who will continue to play after them.
Secondly, we can't pretend like circumstance doesn't play a role here. For starters, NHL players haven't had the chance to represent their countries on this big of a stage since 2016. They haven't been allowed to play in the past 2 Olympics, so there's a ton of pent up excitement for all these guys to play best-on-best for the first time in a decade. You combine that with the political tension between USA and Canada at the moment, and obviously you're going to get some fireworks. We can't pretend like politics didn't play a role in making Saturday night so epic. I doubt the players actually care about the politics, but when you have an entire Bell Centre full of Canadian fans booing the Star Spangled Banner? Well obviously Team USA wanted to go out there and set the tone with a few brawls and turn that game upside down from the opening puck drop.
Immense pride, and circumstance has allowed the 4 Nations Face-Off to be a hit. So it's not as simple as just having the other professional leagues in North America copy this idea and have the same results.
Let's just take away the obvious one here and say it would never work in the NFL. Even if you didn't go international and just let these guys play a tournament representing whatever region of America they come from, these guys don't even play preseason games anymore and they don't tackle at practice. If you think they're going to replicate the amount of physicality you'd get in a regular game to play in an exhibition tournament, you are smoking crack. The NFL will never be able to fix the Pro Bowl, and it's just an annoying vacation for these guys from now on.
Then you get to the NBA. I'm sure a USA vs the World game would still give you a better product than what they have currently. But even still. These guys are too rich to care. They'd treat it like an exhibition until the final few minutes of the game. They're not willing to lay it all out on the line for their country. Maybe the Europeans would, I don't know. But there wouldn't be the insatiable thirst for blood between those two teams as there is when it comes to USA vs Canada in hockey. It would certainly be better than what they have now, but it wouldn't become an event that goes beyond the realm of sport.
Then you get to the MLB. Would pitchers be allowed to throw gas for however long they need to stay in the game to make something like this work? Or would their MLB team put a pitch count on them to protect their investment for the rest of the season? We already know what the home run derby does to guys for the rest of the season, I can't imagine a team would want to let one of their pitchers completely spend their arm for the rest of the year. Maybe if they did it before the season started, but that's not an all-star game now is it?
Fact of the matter here is that the NHL has something special, and they have something pretty unique. Maybe it loses a bit of its allure once the NHL is back to participating in the Olympics regularly, but I can see a scenario where the World Cup of Hockey could become a more entertaining product just because IIHF rules are trying to neuter the game. For once, the NHL is in the driver's seat of the sports world in North America. Here's to hoping Thursday night lives up to the hype and they keep their foot on the gas.