On a Saturday when hundreds of thousands outside partied like pirates, hockey fans from all over the continent coalesced in sunny Tampa Bay for the NHL All-Star Skills Competition.
It’s where some of the league’s best competed to see who was the fastest skater (Edmonton’s Connor McDavid, clocking a 13.454 seconds for his lap around the rink), the most accurate passer (Alex Pietrangelo, St. Louis Blues), deadliest sniper (Vancouver Canucks rookie Brock Boeser, accuracy shooting winner), best goalie (Las Vegas’ Marc-André Fleury, save streak competition) and hardest shot (Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals). Also entertaining was the puck control relay, which befuddled pretty much everyone except for Calgary’s Johnny Gaudreau.
CRUZ CONTROL
Joshua Cruz’s “Poison Lips” video might be the Bay area’s sexiest R&B clip to date — watch
The winner of each event won $25,000, and while all of the Tampa Bay Lightning’s skills competition representatives were shut out, Florida got a lot of musical shine thanks to Tampa’s own Joshua Cruz who was the in-house band for the entire evening. Cruz, 26, and his band The Experience (which includes Trevor Easterling, Caleb Sanders, Israel Solberg and Julian Carrington) entertained the 19,092 fans in attendance with covers of Michael Jackson, Bruno Mars, Justin Timberlake and more. We didn’t hear any originals, but Cruz has vowed to bring songs like “Poison Lips” back to arena for his own show one day.
[See photos from the entire NHL All-Star Weekend here.]
Outside, at the Cotanchobee Park stage set up for fan fest, local favorites like Ella Jet, Dean Johanesen and Tribal Style entertained hockey lovers who filed into the green space for some rest and relaxation plus facetime with the Stanley Cup, which was set up on the eastern end of the park.
Out of town visitors really got into it, too, including Ottawa Senators defenseman, Erik Karlsson who got in the Gasparilla spirit by donning a pirate costume before the game (the hat made it on-ice as part of the star-studded warm up). Lightning players predictably got huge ovations from the Amalie Arena faithful, but former Bolts defenseman Brian Boyle received the night’s biggest ovation and even earned himself a “BRI-AN BOY-LE” chant from fans of his old home team.
Locally-loathed Sidney Crosby (Pittsburgh Penguins) and the Chicago Blackhawks’ Patrick Kane received hearty boos, but they probably ate cereal out of the Stanley Cup after winning it a total of six times in the last nine seasons (Crosby lifted it in 2009, ‘16 and ‘17; Kane did it in 2010, ‘13 and ‘15).
Coral City rapper Flo Rida — on-ice in his own All-Star sweater — popped in and out of his biggest hits as members from each division (Atlantic, Central, Metropolitan and Pacific) received intros. The 38-year-old Miami Gardens product also put on quite the show at a private NHL party at the convention center after the competition wrapped.
Sunday sees the NHL All-Star Weekend wrap with a highly anticipated in-arena concert from polarizing rocker Kid Rock. Follow CL on Instagram to see what’s doing down at Amalie Arena.
This article appears in Jan 25 – Feb 1, 2018.
