All-Star Skills will highlight Vegas with Fountain Face-Off, 21 in '22

Players in the Fountains of Bellagio, shooting pucks at targets? Players on Las Vegas Boulevard, with the Strip's main street shut down, shooting pucks at an oversized deck of cards?

The NHL always looks for creative ways to celebrate the city at each big event, and it came up with two outside-the-box ideas for the 2022 NHL All-Star Skills presented by DraftKings Sportsbook on Feb. 4 (7:30 p.m. ET; ESPN, SN, TVAS) in a city famous for over-the-top shows.
The Discover NHL Fountain Face-Off and the Las Vegas NHL 21 in '22 will be like nothing the NHL has ever done before.
"I think our players are going to love these events," NHL chief content officer Steve Mayer said. "It's going to look incredible. I'm super psyched that we're going to do these events and add something that will be unique to Vegas, something that years from now will make people go, 'Oh, man, remember …'"
In the Fountain Face-Off, eight players will compete on, well, unfrozen ice. They will take a boat to what Mayer called "center water" in front of the Bellagio and see who can shoot pucks into five targets in the least amount of time. There will be a qualifying round and a head-to-head final.
"Vegas is the perfect place and backdrop to do something outside the venue as well as inside, and we did a fair amount of research," Mayer said. "We settled on what we think is one of the most iconic spots in Vegas, and that's the Fountains of Bellagio for one event.
"Obviously, it attracts millions of tourists every single year who come just to watch the water show. But imagine if suddenly that water transformed into a hockey rink."
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The display spans more than 1,000 feet, and the fountains spray water as high as 460 feet.
"I don't want to give away too much," Mayer said. "But we're going to sort of up the ante a little bit with making it a slightly more challenging situation for a player, and just think of the environment and the things that we could do to make it a bit more challenging."
Pucks could splash. Players could hit targets and say, "Hey Look Ma, I Made It." The Las Vegas band Panic! At The Disco didn't play that song but played "High Hopes" on a stage in the fountains before Game 5 of the 2018 Stanley Cup Final between the Washington Capitals and Vegas Golden Knights.
"It was so cool, but there's never been a sport played in the fountains," Mayer said, setting up a joke with a laugh. "Maybe somebody went swimming once or twice."

In the 21 in '22, five players will stand on Las Vegas Boulevard and put a new twist on street hockey and blackjack. They will shoot at 52 oversized cards, trying to get the highest hand in the fewest shots without going bust. The first player who wins two rounds wins the event.
"It's accuracy shooting with strategy, because you're now shooting at 52 targets rather than four," Mayer said. "We're going to incorporate some other elements to throw guys off a little bit, to give them opportunities to maybe double down. We're going to use celebrities and I think Vegas personalities to kind of just enhance the experience."
Five more events will be held inside T-Mobile Arena: the Verizon NHL Fastest Skater, Dunkin' NHL Save Streak, EA SPORTS NHL Hardest Shot, adidas NHL Breakaway Challenge and Honda NHL Accuracy Shooting.
The Breakaway Challenge returns for the first time since 2016.
"To sort of remind everyone what that was, that's where players got creative in a shootout format," Mayer said. "They put on costumes. They did trick shots. They showed off their personality. We figured, 'We're in Vegas. Where else would something like this work so well?' And so, we lobbied to bring it back, and everybody said, 'Of course.'"
A minimum of four skaters and two goalies will compete. Shooters can start anywhere in the neutral zone and use the entire offensive zone, including behind the net. Each will attempt two shots.
The difference this time is that a panel of celebrity judges consisting of Emmy Award-winning actor Jon Hamm, Las Vegas ventriloquist Terry Fator, and NHL Hall of Famers Paul Coffey and Mark Messier will rate them on a scale of 1-10, like in the NBA All-Star Dunk Contest.
"Yeah, you want to score a goal at the end of your moment, but creativity will be highly marked," Mayer said. "You'll get points for creativity.
"Listen, the whole night, we want to have fun. It really is quite the showcase for our players to show off their personality, to smile, hang out with the other players.
"You want our guys to just kind of let their hair down a bit and do what shows how amazing they are, both in skill, because they're the greatest players in the world, but also in that they're more than just hockey players. They're fun-loving guys who love playing the game and love to kind of show off in a forum like this."