February is all-star month for three of what used to be considered the four major team sports, at least in places where ice is for skating on, and football is not spelled with a “u.”
The NHL, partly through good fortune of what’s on its horizon internationally, figured out how to save its all-star event. Meanwhile, the NBA went to Cabo again.
The NFL pluralized its all-star event’s name a few years ago, meaning we now have the Pro Bowl Games. Well, we in Hawaii no longer do. Be that as it may, the Pro Bowl game shift to the Pro Bowl Games turned a fake competition into something part high school P.E. class and part celebrity carnival.
There is some car wreck interest to a 7-on-7 flag football game, played by NFL superstars and surrounded by elements of a really bad game show (teammate trivia) and a county fair (which lineman can spike a ball the hardest). But staying power? Doubtful.
Hockey, though, may have come upon something sustainable that was always there. It possesses a couple of key cards to fan popularity, and it played them well with the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off.
Fighting and flag-waving are integral parts of hockey at its highest level, and both were on full display over the past week and a half. The NHL substituted its all-star game with a precursor to the 2026 Winter Olympics, and scored a hat trick.
It worked because of buy-in from the players and contagious excitement for fans, old and new.
There used to be fights associated with the Pro Bowl, but those were before the game, and with hotel clerks and nightclub owners, not among the players themselves.
In hockey, fighting equates with passion, not always unnecessary thuggery. When an all-star event can deliver passion, the sport wins.
Americans Matthew and Brady Tkachuk became the Hanson brothers of “Slapshot” fame, and the pregame tension between the U.S. and Canada squads exploded with three fights in the first nine seconds of their round-robin game won by the Americans, 3-1. Canada took the championship rematch, 3-2. To be continued, at the Olympics.
As for the NBA, its all-star break headed closer to exactly that — a full-on break, with beach time more important than playing time and nothing relevant happening on any court where college teams aren’t jockeying for March Madness position.
Caitlin Clark said thanks, but no thanks to the NBA’s 3-point shooting contest invite, and the mini-tourney of games to 40 points including a rising stars squad failed to keep the interest of many of the current ones. That included LeBron James, who was a late scratch.
While the NHL bet on patriotism and won, the NBA floundered.
Can baseball learn something from any of this?
Sure, but first it had to fix its costume malfunction of last year. Someone mistakenly thought uniformity of uniforms by league mattered more than the players showing the colors of their actual teams and the cities they rep.
American League and National League used to mean something. They haven’t since the first interleague regular-season game. Then the Brewers and Astros traded leagues. Then the National League added the DH, half a century after the American League started its experiment.
Now, the world’s most exciting player is both a DH and a pitcher.
The next World Baseball Classic is next year. The last one, in 2023, ended with Shohei Ohtani striking out Mike Trout, back when both were under contract with the Angels — and before Ohtani hit 54 homers and stole 59 bases for the Dodgers last season while taking a break from pitching due to shoulder and elbow surgery.
Maybe the U.S. should play the rest of the world in the MLB All-Star Game. Or, you could do it like hockey, with your four teams representing the U.S., Japan, the Dominican Republic … and everywhere else.
