Gary Bettman makes major announcement regarding this season's All-Star Weekend in Toronto

Once upon a time, the NHL All-Star Game was an event that players and fans looked forward to every year. It was a showcase for the NHL's top talents and a chance for two super-teams, one from each conference, to face off against one another.

Over the years, there were different iterations of All-Star Weekend, which included East vs West, North America vs The World and, most recently, inter-division 3-on-3 tournament play. Unfortunately, with how watered down the event has become, it has become more and more of a sideshow and less and less of a best-on-best NHL showcase.

Last night during Kraft Hockeyville coverage on Sportsnet, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman revealed that there will be changes to the event this year. Bettman revealed that since the All-Star festivities were in Toronto this season, the plan is to tone down the event a bit as a way of paying tribute to the history of the event and that the All-Star Skills Competition will be a bit more traditional.

In recent years, we've seen outdoor shooting accuracy events in Florida and Vegas, which weren't really received very well by the fanbase. This year, it appears as though the NHL has learned its lesson and wants to get back to something that at least resembles Skills Competitions from when the event was at its peak.

Bettman was careful not to drop too many details so early, but it's nice to know that the NHL is finally paying attention to the fact that people are losing interest in All-Star Weekend and are actually trying to do something about it. I'd imagine that the tournament will still be 3-on-3 format, which isn't my personal favourite format, but as long as their getting back to a more traditional All-Star experience, I can live with it.

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