Ice hockey’s elite NHL has announced that its All-Star Weekend in 2027 will once again take place as a national team tournament, as opposed to the traditional mixed-team format, with five sides to take part.
The concept was first introduced as a replacement for the 2025 All-Star showcase, which became the ‘4 Nations Face Off’, and will pit the US, Canada, Sweden, and Finland against each other over the single-day mini-tournament on February 6, 2027.
Those four teams will be joined by a ‘World’ side made up of players from outside those four territories, likely including the likes of Germany’s Leon Draisatl, Russia’s Nikita Kucherov, and Czechia’s David Pastrnak.
As with the 4 Nations Face-Off of 2025, the teams will compete in round-robin fashion with four 5-minute games, after which, the top two teams will advance to a 10-minute final
This tournament will be hosted by the New York Islanders franchise at their 17,255-capacity UBS Arena home.
The 4 Nations Face-Off was a major success for the NHL, drawing strong viewership in both the US and Canada, bucking a number of multi-year trends in the process.
Indeed, the final of that tournament, which Canada won 3-2 in overtime, produced the largest ice hockey broadcast audience ever on broadcaster ESPN, with an average audience of 9.3 million on that sports network in the US, and 6.3 million on Sportsnet in Canada.
The NHL is no doubt seeking to replicate that result in 2027, and by opening up new markets through the World team will seek greater broadcast interest from territories outside the US, Canada, Sweden, and Finland.
A key factor will be the alteration of the format into a single-day, 5-minute game round robin, whereas the previous tournament consisted of regulation-time matches over a number of days. This new format may consolidate higher viewership over a single day, but also, has the potential to dissuade viewers who preferred the purist format of the 2025 edition.
The NHL, meanwhile, has also announced the appointment of Heidi Browning as the league’s new chief digital officer.
Browning has served as the NHL’s chief marketing officer for over nine years (since October 2016) and now moves into a new role that will bring together digital functions from across the league’s operations under one team.
This role will focus on enhancing data gathering and optimization, improving the league’s consumer-facing digital operations (such as the NHL website and app) to grow fan engagement, and managing the league’s tech-focused commercial partnerships.
Speaking on LinkedIn, Browning said: “After nearly 10 years as chief marketing officer, I’ve been reflecting on how much we’ve built together, and I couldn’t be more proud of this team and what we’ve accomplished. Over that time, we’ve launched and grown new disciplines across data, research, fan engagement, creator marketing, and social media, and those efforts have helped drive meaningful impact across the League.
“As the league continues to evolve, digital has become even more central to how we connect with fans, personalize experiences, and create new opportunities for growth across the globe.”
