Mary and I, along with our daughter Kari and granddaughter Emery, were honored to be able to attend the NHL All-Star Weekend that took place in Los Angeles Jan. 27-29. Kari played youth hockey all the way into college and is a coach and teacher of the sport in Canada. Emery plays, as do her siblings, and most of her cousins who are old enough to put on skates. Needless to say, we are huge hockey fans. (Plus, Stahls’ has also been a licensed supplier to the NHL since approximately 2001) The National Hockey League decided to change things up in 2016 for the All-Star tournament, with a new format. Basically it’s now a 3-on-3 All-Star Tournament between the NHL’s most talented star players from each division–Pacific, Central, Atlantic and Metropolitan– and there are three 20-minute games. We found the new format wonderful and exciting to watch. It was also a huge thrill seeing the NHL’s picks for the 100 most influential hockey players of all time, which included hometown heroes Gordie Howe (RIP) and Ted Lindsay. Having the All-Stars themselves on the ice at the same time was a pretty amazing sight. As far as fan enthusiasm, you know that Boston, Chicago and Detroit and some of the older teams have first class fan power; but at this event it seems those fans took a back seat to what Los Angeles feels for their team. If they scored, they roared. And they didn’t shy away from booing when their rivals took the ice! All in all, it was very exciting to see hockey fans from all over the country supporting their teams, wearing team jerseys and relishing in the fanfare of the events. We also enjoyed the celebrity shoot out and one of my favorite events, the skills competition.We hope to be able to attend next year.