How to Watch: National Team players at the NHL All-Star Skills Competition

What: Elite Women’s 3-on-3 presented by adidas at NHL All-Star Skills Competition; Gatorade NHL Shooting Stars

When: Friday, Jan. 24. The competition starts at 8 p.m. eastern, 7 p.m. central but the 3-on-3 game is the fourth of six events and the Shooting Stars event is the last event. If you only want to watch those portions maybe wait an hour. We’ll tweet updates as to where the competition is at so you can know when to tune in.

How: NBCSN in the U.S. and on Sportsnet, CBC and TVA Sports in Canada. For Sportsnet, Cassie Campbell-Pascall will be on the call as color with Jim Hughson as play-by-play.

Who

The rosters were picked in consultation with Cassie Campbell-Pascall, Cammi Granato, Angela Ruggiero, and Hayley Wickenheiser.

The two countries will face off in a 3-on-3 game with 2 10-minute running clock halves. In lieu of sitting for a penalty, the other team will get a penalty shot taken by the player who drew the call.

The officials will also be all females. The referees will be Kelly Cooke and Katie Guay with Kendall Hanley and Kirsten Welsh as linespeople.

At the end of the game, the two players (one from each country) who will be competing in the Shooting Stars event will be announced. Fans were able to vote one of four players in via Twitter.

For the US, Knight has a large lead as of Friday morning with nearly half the votes. Lamoureux-Davidson and Decker are tied in second while Bellamy is much farther back. On the Canadian side, Poulin holds a much more narrow 13 percent lead over Spooner.

Whomever is voted in will join eight NHL-ers on a platform about 30 feet above the ice surface to shoot at targets worth various amounts of points. They’ll have seven shots to score as many points as possible.

As first reported by Gabs Fundaro, the players are being paid. However, it is in the form of an appearance fee and not prize money, according to Seth Berkman in the New York Times.

This is going to be mad fun. How Canada will play Coyne Schofield with her speed and the open ice will be super interesting. Pankowski is the relative “new name” to this type of event, but I expect that will change after a larger fan base see what she can do. Honestly, it’s a toss up as to who wins, and I hate predictions so I won’t.

I’m also very excited about the Shooting Stars event because I’m all for fun hockey. While I would have liked to be able to vote for the goalies from each country, I get why we had to vote from only four players.

Another interesting aspect of this is that April’s World Championships will be the first time the senior teams will play 3-on-3 overtime in gold medal games. While the players will probably have a bit more fun with the NHL All-Star Skill Competition than a potential gold medal game, this could be a glimpse of the future.

Related

The Wraparound: National Team players in the NHL All-Star Skills Competition
US, Canadian National Team players to participate in NHL All-Star Weekend