NHL replacing All-Star Weekend with international event in ‘26

The NHL is pivoting away from a traditional All-Star Weekend for the 2025-26 season and planning another international event on the heels of the success of the inaugural 4 Nations Face-Off.

The league originally announced a 2026 All-Star Weekend at the New York Islanders' new home of UBS Arena in Elmont, N.Y. And the idea of changing plans less than a year away did not sit well with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who wrote a letter to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman on Monday.

"I am writing to express my disappointment regarding the NHL's decision to cancel the 2026 All-Star Weekend at UBS Arena and replace it with a Winter Olympics kick-off event," Hochul wrote. "This decision was made without consultation with the State of New York, which has been a critical partner in supporting this facility and the NHL's presence on Long Island as well as the entire State."

Hochul continued to call the league's decision a "cancellation" and requested that the NHL "bring a hockey event with equal or greater economic activity and cultural value to the region in 2027."

However, the NHL has not publicly commented on its plans and may still use UBS Arena as the center for an international tournament ahead of the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics in Italy next February.

"It's going to be a spectacular international event," an unnamed league source told ESPN about the matter Monday.

The NHL drew widespread praise for the 4 Nations Face-Off, contested last February in Boston and Montreal with Canada winning the gold medal. It was the first best-on-best international hockey tournament since the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, as the NHL did not allow its players to participate in the 2018 or 2022 Winter Olympics.

While the 4 Nations Face-Off replaced a typical All-Star Game in 2025, the NBA continued to receive negative reviews for its All-Star Game, which tried out a four-team tournament format with a draft and included a Rising Stars team.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver has since admitted it is considering a USA vs. World format for the 2026 main event, and Bettman may be interested in keeping hockey in that space as well.

"We know we've set the bar high, which should be a good thing, not a problem," Bettman said last week at a meeting of Associated Press Sports Editors. "We're going to make sure we do something. ... We'll have an event at UBS before we go to the Olympics, but then we'll do something that's more focused on a major hockey event for the following year."

--Field Level Media