2018 NHL All-Star Weekend: Media Day and Skills Competition

The beard landed in Tampa Bay, Florida, for the 2018 All-Star Weekend. Brent Burns, the lone Shark at the games this year, kicked off his All-Star Weekend bright and early on Saturday.
Of course, it wouldn't be a true All-Star weekend without the Media Day frenzy. Burns met with the media for some formal and not so formal interviews. He even made some new friends along the way.

All-Star weekend is also a great time to catch up with other "colleagues" off the ice. Everyone loves the friendly beard!

As the media portion of the day wrapped up at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, gears shifted to the Skills Competition at Amalie Arena.
Burnzie arrived on scene sporting his famous backpack (of course).

Big news broke at NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman's press conference prior to the skills competition. San Jose was awarded the 2019 NHL All-Star Game. The city of San Jose and the San Jose Sharks will host the games January 25-27 in 2019.

It has become a tradition the past few years to have the Sharks kiddos enjoy the weekend festivities too! Jagger Burns joined in on the pregame locker room fun and even had some ice time.

It's always a pretty cool moment to be introduced on the video board in front of the giant crowd too.

Burnzie took the stage for the Hardest Shot Challenge at the Skills Competition. His first shot wasn't his best but he recorded in at 88MPH. Pretty fitting we'd say! His second shot came in at 92.4MPH. Burnzie didn't top the list and Capitals Alexander Ovechkin took home the title for Hardest Shot.

Brent Burns concluded the Skills Competition with postgame autographs and of course, dad duty.

The action starts all over again tomorrow for the NHL All-Star Game. The Pacific Divison will face off against the Central Division at 3:30pm ET.