The NHL’s All-Star weekend could soon be coming to Canada and, according to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek, Toronto is a potential bidder to watch.
“With the postponement of the 2024 World Cup of Hockey, the NHL needs an All-Star Game in February of 2024, after we go to Florida this year, and I think there is some Canadian interest," Friedman said during Saturday's 32 Thoughts segment on Hockey Night in Canada. "Edmonton's got a new building, Montreal loves to host events – although they just had the draft – but I do wonder about Toronto. I think Toronto is interested, and I think they're a potential bidder."
The NHL last held its All-Star festivities in Canada in 2012 in Ottawa. Toronto last hosted in 2000. Over the past decade, the league's top players have flocked to sunny destinations – Vegas, San Jose, Tampa Bay, Los Angeles and Nashville – and this season is no different, with the Florida Panthers playing host.
"I think one of the suggestions that has been kind of thrown around out there is, should there be a rotation of seven to 10 cities that players would like to go to in the winter?" Friedman noted. "I'm not sure the NHL agrees with that, but I know it's been thrown out there."
The NHL announced last month that the World Cup of Hockey, a best-on-best international tournament that was proposed over 17 days in February 2024 in cities in both North America and Europe, is "not feasible" in the current environment. Just like in Olympic years, that event would’ve seen the NHL forego an All-Star weekend.
Toronto, noted Marek, was to be one of the North American hubs of the tournament.
Winnipeg is the lone Canadian market to never have hosted the All-Star Game. The Ducks, Coyotes and Kraken are the only other franchises not to have hosted.
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