Nashville will host the NHL all-star game for the first time in 2016, sources told The Canadian Press on Wednesday.
A formal announcement is expected to be made at a news conference Friday at Bridgestone Arena. Commissioner Gary Bettman and local politicians will be in attendance.
The city previously hosted the NHL Entry Draft in 2003, when the arena was named Gaylord Entertainment Center.
This is the latest event to be announced by the National Hockey League as it plans out the next few years. The Winter Classic will take place at Nationals Park in Washington on Jan. 1, and later that month Columbus's Nationwide Arena will hold the 2015 all-star game.
June's draft will be at BB&T Center in Sunrise, Fla., and the 2016 event will be at First Niagara Center in Buffalo, N.Y.
"We put on more events than ever before," Bettman said recently while in Toronto. "We create more content, the players are so tremendously accessible. ... There's just more and more and more because we're bigger and bigger and bigger."
With the Maple Leafs set to celebrate their 100-year anniversary during the 2016-'17 campaign, Toronto has been linked to the return of the World Cup of Hockey, Winter Classic, all-star game and the draft.
It's not clear how many of those events might be held in the city that season.
