‘Power building emerges’ in Rockford as IceHogs earn 2026 All-Star event | TheAHL.com
Patrick WilliamsTheAHL.com Features Writer
Location. Logistics and location. Hotel location. A front office capable of taking on a large project.
The Rockford IceHogs can tick all those boxes and then some, which is why they will be in charge The 2026 AHL All-Star Classic is presented by BMO next February.
“Of course, along with the Calder Cup Finals, the marquee event of the American Hockey League,” President and CEO. Scott Howson said at a news conference held at the BMO Center on Monday.
The two-day event is televised live in North America and broadcast around the world. Since its revival in 1995, more than 94 percent of its participants have moved on to the National Hockey League. And next year’s festivities will also be a highlight of the AHL’s 90th-anniversary season and the Chicago Blackhawks’ centennial season.
“It’s been a long time coming,” said the IceHogs president of hockey and general manager Mark Bernard said Monday. “This will be a great opportunity to show the rest of the league what Rockford is all about.”
As has been the case in previous Olympic years, the 2026 AHL All-Star Classic will feature a Tuesday-Wednesday setup, with the Skills Competition taking place on the February 10 AHL Hall of Fame Induction and Awards Ceremony and the All-Star Challenge. on February 11. With the NHL calendar quiet during the Olympics – the men’s ice hockey tournament will begin on Feb. 11 in Milan – more attention will be paid to the annual meeting of the AHL.
The BMO Center, the home of the IceHogs and a building already known for its spectacular views, recently underwent a $27 million renovation of its infrastructure, technology, social media and venues. The scoreboard, ribbon-board, sound and lighting upgrades were among the changes. That development came when the Chicago Blackhawks purchased the IceHogs from the city of Rockford with a 2021 deal that will keep the club in the city through at least 2036. The building, which opened in 1981, was renovated in 2007. before the Blackhawks brought their AHL organization to Rockford.
Beyond hockey, the arena has a strong calendar that includes Disney On Ice and Cirque du Soleil next month alone.
“It was a lot of work to make the building look like this,” said the general manager of the BMO Center Gretchen Gilmore said in an announcement on Monday. He thought back to some of the early informal discussions about buying the event for Rockford in 2021. “It was a dream at the time,” he recalls, “to find a building and get it to a place where we could host an event like this. this. Today our dream has come true.”
The 2026 AHL All-Star Classic will be the first time the event has been held in the Midwest since Grand Rapids hosted it in 2004. Centrally located in Rockford, fans of Chicago, Grand Rapids, Iowa and Milwaukee are all within relatively easy driving distance. in Rockford. And direct flights are available from nearly every AHL market across the United States and Canada to O’Hare International Airport, just over an hour’s drive away.
“Those fan bases are going really well, and I hope those fans are interested in coming here,” Mike Peckthe group’s vice president of marketing, content and operations, said. “It’s like everybody’s backyard here in the Midwest.”
Those fans – not to mention the players, coaches, staff, families, VIPs and thousands of other guests – will need a place to spend a few nights. A new hotel space was built recently, a must have for this type of event.
Finally comes having a good front office. Howson revealed Monday that the IceHogs lead the AHL in ticket revenue growth of 28 percent year over year.
“They did a great job,” said the IceHogs’ president of business operations Ryan Snider said the front office. “They are the ones who do the really hard work to bring results. This event would not have been successful without them.”
There is a lot of work to be done in the next 13 months before the event ends. There will be a Rockford team on the floor at this year’s All-Star Classic in the Coachella Valley on Feb. 2-3. Attendance will have the opportunity to carefully consider the needs and requirements that come with being addressed.
After that it’s back to Rockford and the full-speed push until February 2026. It’s a lot of extra work on top of the day-to-day work going into the season already, Peck admits. But having spoken to their colleagues in the league whose clubs have previously managed them, their consensus is that the extra effort is more than worth it.
So the AHL will come to Rockford, but people from all over the league will leave knowing what one-dayers like Peck and Bernard have known about their city for a while.
“The nice thing about coming to a market like Rockford,” Peck said, “is that the city will welcome you.”
Howson said, “I can already feel the power building.”
In the American Hockey League for two decades, TheAHL.com features writer Patrick Williams and currently covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a regular contributor to SiriusXM NHL Network Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for the league’s top scorer in 2016.
