Behind the scenes at the NHL’s incredible dunk tank, golf events

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Hockey fans have seen Sidney Crosby raise the Stanley Cup, win Olympic gold and receive MVP honors. They had never, until this week, seen him emerge saturated and giggling after tumbling into a water-filled tank on a Florida beach.

For the past two seasons, the NHL has incorporated pre-taped outdoor events into its annual All-Star skills competition, held the night before the All-Star Game. In 2022, players shot pucks on the Las Vegas Strip and in the iconic fountains at The Bellagio casino.

With the Florida Panthers hosting the 2023 All-Star Game, the NHL tailored its events to the Sunshine State: One event that combined hockey with golf, and another that had the Pittsburgh Penguins captain and five other stars falling into five feet of water when their opponents shot a puck off an NHL logo target.

“I’m still soaked from it,” Colorado Avalanche defenseman Cale Makar said, hours after he dropped into the Enterprise NHL Splash Shot tank Thursday. “But it was a lot of fun. I think the NHL’s doing a great job of trying to come up with new games to bring fans in.”

These pre-taped events have come to define both the skills competition and the reinvigorated spirit of the annual event. It wasn’t too long ago that players begrudgingly attended NHL All-Star Weekend and were so wary of being put in awkward situations that the league stopped doing its trick shot competition for a few seasons.

How times have changed. Now, Crosby is lobbying the league to let him compete in a dunk tank event and recruiting his friend Nathan MacKinnon of the Avalanche to be his partner.

“I just thought it would be cool,” Crosby told ESPN. “We’re in Florida. We’re at the beach. It was Nate and the guys. It was something different that we hadn’t done before.”

Both the hockey golf and dunk tank events were challenging undertakings, from concept to execution, from mechanics to the unpredictability of the environment.

“We knew coming to Florida that it’s a risk,” NHL chief content officer Steve Mayer said. “Doing an event like this, which you can imagine is not cheap. If we’re in a rainy week, this is a disaster. But it’s worth the risk.”

Here’s how the NHL pulled off events that had players shooting pucks at colorful surfboards at the beach and over a water hazard at a country club. It wasn’t without its challenges, but it had plenty of triumphs.

Wednesday: Hockey meets golf

Police vehicles lined the traffic circle in front of Plantation Preserve Golf Course and Club on Wednesday, the first signifier that something out of the ordinary was happening at the public golf facility.

The second signifier was seeing four NHL players dressed for golf, wearing hockey gloves and using their sticks to shoot pucks at the grassy fairway in front them.

The dunk tank event was initially conceived for the 2020 NHL All-Star Game in St. Louis. Mayer said they wanted to do a dunk talk on the ice during the skills competition. “At that time, there were some controversial figures in and around hockey that we thought people might want to dunk,” he said.

The NHL opted for something a little less splashy: a variation on Top Golf that incorporated NHL stars and women’s national team players. But the dunk tank concept was so popular, they kept it in mind for future installments.

“The ones we think are pretty good never die,” Mayer said.

Once the NHL knew its Fan Fest would be located on the Fort Lauderdale beach, their creative brainstorming began. One early idea: Somehow incorporating live alligators into an event. Mayer said that proved to be “a little complicated.” Instead, the NHL ran back the dunk tank concept.

The NHL was concerned that a traditional dunk tank setup — shooting pucks at a target to trigger the drop — would too closely resemble the shot accuracy skills competition, where players fire pucks at targets placed in each corner of the net. So the league added elements to make Splash Shot stand out: Competitors would have to knock down six foam surfboards before getting a chance to shoot at the target.

The tanks were placed directly in front of the beach — pucks that missed the boards would fly off into the sand or, in some cases, all the way into the ocean. Fans dove in to scavenge for them after the event. The Splash Shot would also be a timed event: The team that shoots first establishes a time that the second team has to beat.

After the players applied some sunscreen — it was sunny and in the mid-80s at the NHL FanFest where the event was held — Matthew Tkachuk and Shesterkin climbed into their respective tanks.

Fox took several shots to knock down the surfboards but hit the NHL logo with one wrister. Tkachuk tumbled into the water, and remained there to cool off.

Brady Tkachuk took his turn to the right of Fox, hitting a few boards before running out of time. Shesterkin shrugged and then eventually jumped into the tank on his own.

“I have to admit: I’m not sure everybody knew how deep the water was when they got here. But they were great about it,” Mayer admitted.

Or, as Makar put it: “It was definitely deeper than we expected.”

Makar and Crosby entered the tank next. Rantanen made quick work of the boards before dunking Crosby. As he shook the water out of his hair, a fan chanted “Let’s go Flyers!”

MacKinnon shot from Rantanen’s right. He hit all the targets … but four of them refused to fall down. For the second shooter in a row, direct hits to the targets didn’t bring down the boards.

The Avalanche and Rangers teams made the final round. Fox climbed into the tank on the right side. Makar, still saturated, shot at the surfboards to his right. Again, two fell but his hard shots at the others couldn’t topple them.

Something was wrong.

“We were ripping it hard. I think it had something to do with the wind because the [water] tanks were blocking the other side,” Makar theorized.

The NHL rehearsed all morning with a collection of hockey influencers known for their shooting skills. The event went off without a hitch. The wind later in the day was one issue. Another was the shooting position of the NHL stars: They were shooting from the side rather than straight on like the shooters in the practice run, who moved down the line to shoot at each board.

The NHL decided to call an audible. Makar would shoot again, this time on the left side. Fox climbed over to Rantanen’s seat. “Let’s redo this final! Let’s get a fair winner!” the event announcer said.

“You never can predict [what happens] in these events,” Mayer said. “For some reason, if there wasn’t a direct hit here, they didn’t fall because the wind was coming from the back. So we made adjustments.”

Makar dunked Fox in 18 seconds. Shesterkin stepped up next with the event on the line. Wielding his goalie stick, Shesterkin knocked down five boards before time ran out. The fans chanted his name. He returned to knock down the final board and hit the target to dunk Rantanen, but the event was done. The Avalanche were “Splash Shot” champions.

“It was fun. It was unique,” Makar said. “As long as the fans are happy, we’re happy.”

“The beauty of editing makes me feel like this is going to look beautiful on television,” Mayer said.

For the second straight year, the NHL had taken its action outside the arena and offered its fans a different kind of event while giving its All-Stars a memorable experience.

“I don’t get many moments with the greatest players, and they were so cool,” Mayer said. “They were trash talking. Sidney Crosby goes in a dunk tank and laughs about it. For all those reasons, it was a complete success.”