Getty Image / Bruce Bennett
Sometimes, the digital version isn’t always better, let Friday night’s shooting accuracy competition at the NHL All-Star game be an example of that.
The NHL All-Star skills competition hasn’t necessarily been appointment television in years past, but some of the competitions are wildly entertaining. The fastest skater is always great as is the hardest shot seeing guys send rockets into the net. The shooting accuracy competition used to be pretty awesome to watch as well, back when they used styrofoam targets that exploded, but over the past few years, those have been replaced with digital targets.
Let’s just say the digital targets haven’t been too successful and they had a really rough night on Friday.
The digital marker box needed repairs after the very first shooter, and the recognition capabilities during the competition were just flat-out embarrassing. Check out Jonathan Huberdeau who was gifted credit for his last target after he didn’t come close to actually hitting it.
Nailed it! pic.twitter.com/XfoYPdvW7v
— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) January 25, 2020
At the end of the day, all of these competitions don’t mean much of anything, but nevertheless, it’s not the best look for the NHL during a fan-filled event to see these guys in a bit of a different element.
Fans on Twitter were not too happy with the digital boards not working, to say the least.
This plexiglass board thing in the #NHLSkillsCompetition Accuracy Shot is so stupid.
Not only did the 2nd shooter break the first glass sheet, one guy got credited for a target that he missed about a foot low.
Technology ruins everything. #NHL
— Tony (@Boots_33) January 25, 2020
The puck wasn’t even close, Target still fell… Horrible accuracy contest. @NHL #fail pic.twitter.com/X7iILQEneI
— Aspect Photography (@aspect_photo) January 25, 2020
Great job changing up the accuracy shot @NHL. Watching technology break and waiting for repairs is way better than the old targets. pic.twitter.com/eXtFAqZO4B
— Charlotte Food Fight (@CLTfoodfight) January 25, 2020
Actually let that dumb screen tick me off. Accuracy shooting used to be my favorite event. The smashing targets, the allure of going 4 for 4.
NHL can’t get out of its own way sometimes. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
— Tim Riday (@TimRiday) January 25, 2020
It’s unclear why the NHL decided to eliminate the styrofoam targets from the competition, but if one thing is certain, fans like seeing hockey pucks hit things that explode and taking away that element of the competition doesn’t make too much sense.
Animated targets may make sense in theory and look alright on television, but it doesn’t matter at all if the things malfunction like we saw last night.
Carolina’s Jaccob Slavin went on to win the competition, for what it’s worth.