KHL adds women’s game, rookie twist to All-Star weekend

The Kontinental Hockey League All-Star Weekend as been nothing if not inventive over the years. There was that time they held the game in Red Square, and gave Jaromir Jagr his own team. The radar gun on their fastest shot competition is, um, generous to say the least. And they let Linus Omark light his stick on fire.

But for the 2017 KHL All-Star Game, they’ve clearly gone too far. Too extreme. Too far beyond the expectations of white male hockey fans. They’ve … gulp … given women players their own game as part of the official all-star weekend.

From the KHL, on what is now called The Week of Hockey Stars in Ufa, capital of the Republic of Bashkortostan:

On Thursday, the 19th of January, the Ufa public will be treated to the first ever Women’s Hockey League All-Star Game, which will be an East versus West contest with each side assembling a 17-woman roster (2 goalies, 15 skaters) and guided by a duo of specialists selected from the League’s top coaches.

Saturday, the 21st of January, is capped by the popular Master Show Super Skills competition, in which the League’s finest test their mettle in trials of strength, speed, skill and creativity in various team and individual contests. There will be many of the traditional favorites (Hardest Shot, Fastest Skater, Shootout) plus some novel events which have never been seen before at an All-star Game.

The 2017 Week of Hockey Stars enjoys its grand finale on Sunday, the 22nd, with a tournament contested by four teams of the finest stars of the KHL. Each team will represent one of the League’s divisions and will have a roster of 11 players – one goaltender, nine skaters, plus one of the four best youngsters from the MHL Challenge Cup. The tournament comprises two semi-finals followed by a final, with games played to a 4-on-4 format, switching to 3-on-3 if the match progresses to overtime.

Great now the All-Star Game is totally ruined by girls, too.

(By the way, NHL: If you can’t add a women’s all-star game to the All-Star Weekend festivities, it’d be cool if you had a few NWHL and CWHL players in for skills competition challenges. Even if they have to wear that generic John Scott NHL Jersey during the event.)

The KHL has another wrinkle as well this season. On January 15, the KHL’s developmental league – the MHL – will hold its Challenge Cup. “This year, the stars of the future competing for this trophy will have some extra motivation: the four best-performing youngsters will earn a call-up to participate in the festival’s main event – the KHL All-Star Game.”

So the best junior players will get a chance to skate with the big boys. That’s fun.

We’d tell the NHL to take notes on turning All-Star Weekend into a celebration of hockey in general and not just the NHL, but then again we didn’t see any KHL reference to an ice luge or Fall Out Boy, so ours is obviously still better.

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Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

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