To jeers from the St. Louis faithful, Patrick Kane won the first rendition of the “Shooting Stars” competition at the 2020 NHL All-Star Skills Event.
Now, the crowd wasn’t booing just because Kane plays for the Blues’ rival Blackhawks in the Central Division. Some might have been grumbling because of some rules confusion. In particular, shooters going for 10 points often felt like they hit the mark, only to realize that they were foiled by the arc. That happened most dramatically when Mitch Marner thought he hit 10 during the tiebreaker round against Kane (and Ryan O’Reilly?). Once it was clear Marner got nothing, Kane pulled off the equivalent to getting a field goal to win in NFL overtime.
Patrick Kane WINS the Shooting Stars competition in OVERTIME!@NHLBlackhawks | #NHLAllStar pic.twitter.com/WUSoO55W4a
— NBC Sports Hockey (@NBCSportsHockey) January 25, 2020
Shooting Stars brings some fun. It also is the sort of activity where you can get a pop from the crowd by bringing in retired stars. The audience received two such treats, as Keith Tkachuk joined his ragamuffin sons Brady and Matthew Tkachuk for an attempt. Brett Hull also took to the stage on behest of Ryan O’Reilly.
St. Louis LOVES Brett Hull! @StLouisBlues | #NHLAllStar pic.twitter.com/yGQAGjdBKy
— NBC Sports Hockey (@NBCSportsHockey) January 25, 2020
People worked the crowd beyond that. As often as Matthew Tkachuk plays the role of pro wrestling villain, he drew some easy cheers by showing off a Cardinals jersey. (To be fair, Matthew spent plenty of time in the area, so he might be a “shoot” Cardinals fan, to use pro wrestling parlance.)
So ... maybe this one needs some fine-tuning, but it was really fun, including strong showings from Marie-Philip Poulin and Hilary Knight. Hockey combining Dude Perfect trick shot videos with Skee-Ball seems like a winner. Now they just need to print out tickets so people can earn worthless nicknacks.
Results
Patrick Kane - 22, “2” in tiebreaker
Mitch Marner - 22, narrowly missed 10 in tiebreaker
Matthew Tkachuk - 20
Marie-Philip Poulin - 15
Hilary Knight - 14
Ryan O’Reilly - 14
David Perron - 14
Tyler Seguin - 14
David Pastrnak - 10
Brady Tkachuk - 6