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I guess the best way to look at this if you’re a fan of the National Football League is while there’s no actual football game today there are football like activities to watch.

While we have to wait a week until the Super Bowl is played the NFL is running out its new version of the Pro Bowl. The Pro Bowl festivities as I guess you’d call them started on Thursday as they had organized skill challenges. Now I’m going to be completely honest with you, I didn’t watch any of these skills challenges that the NFL had starting back on Thursday. I just wasn’t really interested in them just like I have no interest in what is now the actual Pro Bowl game.

I’m sure you know by now that the Pro Bowl game is now a flag football game. I understand why the NFL had to make these changes. When you have professional football players who make millions of dollars playing the sport the last thing that anyone wants to have happen would be for one of them to get seriously injured in a game that means absolutely nothing. The last few years the game has more or less been a flag football game anyway as there was no real hitting that took place in it.

What’s always come as a surprise to me is that the Pro Bowl has always done well in the television ratings. Now to be fair those ratings have declined the last few years and I’m sure that was part of the reason that the NFL looked for ways to change the game.

I used to watch the Pro Bowl pretty much every season because it was the last chance to see the best players on the non-playoff teams play in a game. You also have to remember that I live in the Chicago area and growing up Bears playoff appearances were few and far between, so I liked to watch those guys play one more time before their off season started.

Even with the new Pro Bowl format it’s clear that not all of today’s players have any interest in playing in it. There were still multiple players that asked out of the game due to injury. In one of the funnier cases Buffalo Bills quarterback josh Allen said he couldn’t play in the game because of an injury. Interestingly Allen played in the Pebble-Beach Pro-Am golf tournament this weekend. Of course, it’s Allen’s choice weather he wants to play or not, I just thought it was funny that he ended up in a golf tournament this weekend.

Now if you’re interested in checking out this new version of the Pro Bowl it’s on ABC, ESPN and ESPN plus. The game has a scheduled start time of 2:00 p.m.

Now the National Hockey League just also happens to have reached the All-Star break in their season. Now I actually would’ve watched the NHL Skills competition and I would’ve checked out some of the game, but I somehow forgot that everything was this weekend.

In the semi-final games the Central division beat the Pacific division 6-4 while the Atlantic division won their semi-final match up against the Metro division 10-6. Then in the finals the Atlantic division got the win over the Central division. 7-5.

Mathew Tkachuk of the Florida Panthers was named the All-Star game Most Valuable Player. Tkachuk had a goal and an assist in the Atlantic divisions 7-5 victory in the finals.

Now unlike a lot of other professional sports specifically the National Basketball Association the NHL doesn’t give their players too many days off after the All-Star game. There are six games on the NHL schedule for Monday, so it’s right back to work for a few teams.

If you haven’t been keeping up with the NHL, you might be a little bit surprised to find out that the Boston Bruins have been the best team in the league heading into the All-Star break.

The Bruins have racked up 39 wins which is five better than anyone else in the league and Boston has also posted a league leading 83 points. The Bruins currently lead the Easten conference and the Atlantic division by 13 points.

Currently the Eastern conference has the four teams with the highest point totals in the NHL. The Bruins is on top with their 83 points. Boston is followed by Carolina Hurricanes who have 76 points. Then the Toronto Maple Leafs are 3rd with 70 points while the New Jersey Devils have the 4th highest total with 68 points. Over in the Western conference the Dallas Stars have the highest point total, but they trail the Bruins, Hurricanes, Maple Leafs and Devils with 66 points.

Of course, it’s been proven over and over again in the NHL that the team or teams that end up with the highest regular season point totals don’t always win the Stanley Cup. The NHL may be the only one of the four major professional sports where the lowest seeded playoff team actually has a shot at winning the title.

Now’s the time that I turn things over to you. Did you watch any of the NFL or NHL skills challenges? Did you watch any or all of the NHL All-Star games? And finally, are you planning on watching the Pro Bowl this afternoon?

Don’t forget to look me up on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.