After a year that will see six outdoor games – Michigan
Stadium, Dodger Stadium, two in Yankee Stadium, Chicago’s Soldier Field and BC
Place in Vancouver – to take advantage of both the outdoor hockey phenomenon
and, in the case of the two games at Yankee Stadium, the media spotlight shone
on New York City on Super Bowl week, the NHL is, according to reports, looking
to throttle back on their outdoor designs for next season, limiting it’s
Stadium Series to just four games.
Whilst the 2015 Winter Classic has already been handed to
the Washington Capitals – the venue and opponent are yet to be officially
announced – there are still three games to be scheduled, and plenty of
excellent options, so I thought I’d take a look at some of the places I’d like
to see an outdoor NHL game take place:
Minneapolis-St Paul:
I don’t care whether it’s TCF Stadium on the campus of the University of
Minnesota or Target Field, where the Twins play baseball, just get an outdoor
NHL game rolling in the State of Hockey. Honestly, it doesn’t matter where you
put on the game, because Minnesotans love hockey like New Zealanders like rugby,
and would support it in droves no matter where it’s held.
Last month, I wrote about how the 2016 Winter Classic should
be given to the Minnesota Wild, but a Stadium Series game of any sort in
2014-15 would be just reward for a fan-base who had their team taken away from
them in the nineties, endured a long spell without an NHL franchise, and are
now seeing the Wild rise to become challengers in the Western Conference,
thanks to the acquisition of high-profile free agents Ryan Suter and American
Olympic captain, Zach Parise.
Lambeau Field:
Yes, I know there isn’t an NHL franchise in Wisconsin (the closest is probably
the Wild in Minneapolis or the Chicago Blackhawks) but the NHL Stadium Series
and Winter Classic between them have visited some of the biggest, best and most
famous outdoor venues in all of America, so it makes good sense to add the
spiritual home of NFL football to the list.
Outdoor hockey on the Frozen Tundra sounds like a dream come
true, and it really wouldn’t matter which two teams played – you could even
bring in a Canadian team – because the atmosphere of the game being played in a
stadium where legendary names like Lombardi and Favre showcased their brilliance
would be more than enough to guarantee both a sell-out and the sort of ticket
demand we havent seen since Detroit and Chicago played a Winter Classic game at
Wrigley Field.
Denver: The
Avalanche are one of the early surprises of the 2013-14 season, and the fact
that Denver-based Coors sponsor the Stadium Series, tends to suggest that the
Mile High City will get an outdoor game sooner rather than later. By way of
commercial alliances with Coors, you’d assume it’ll most likely come as part of
the Stadium Series rather than a Winter Classic.
Aside from any pressure Coors might put on the league,
Denver is a perfect environment for an outdoor game, sitting, as it does, in
the shadows of the mountains. It’s one of the few cold-weather franchises that
isn’t consistently brought up as a possible outdoor game destination and I’m
not really sure why. I’d love to see the Nathan MacKinnon and the Avs take on
their old blood rivals, the Detroit Red Wings in front of eighty thousand
inside Sports Authority Field at Mile High.
Nashville: Just
for something different. You can’t pull the ‘the game won’t work in a
warm-weather environment’ out of the deck anymore, because the Anaheim/Los
Angeles game at Dodger Stadium that kicked off the 2014 Stadium Series proved
that a rink could survive and even provide a pretty solid surface for a game of
pro hockey in the mildly-wintered environs of Southern California – thanks to
the ice guru, Dan Craig, and his team – so why not take a game down south to
Music City.
The atmosphere with Hollywood’s best in Los Angeles was
awesome, so the league should try and recreate that big-time star-power, but
this time with the best of the country music community instead of the acting
fraternity. I mean, these are big-time stars, who have amazing reach and
influence over far more than just the southern United States. Can you imagine
the likes of Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw and Carrie Underwood in the stands watching
the game and, more importantly, promoting the game?
As far as a venue goes, there’s a perfect one right in the
heart of the city, L.P. Field where the Tennessee Titans play football in the
fall. Not only would an outdoor game be a nice nod to the Predators, who do a
good job in a market that’s not exactly hockey-crazy, and fulfil another
purpose: growing the profile of hockey, which Commissioner Bettman and his team
at NHL headquarter seem to want to do at every opportunity.
Las Vegas: Yes,
it’s been done before, as a pre-season event, but it could be done again and
better. Nothing screams over-the-top entertainment like Sin City, and the city
loves nothing more than a big-time event, something to embrace and promote the heck
out of. And, you’re going to attract plenty of non-hockey eyeballs in the
process.
Although there’s no real purpose-built outdoor arena – aside
from Sam Boyd Stadium, home to a college football bowl game and UNLV football
each fall – you could certainly count on the NHL’s brains trust, in concert
with city representatives, to come up with something innovative. A game on the
Strip, for example, would be an epic setting. You could have it right in the
middle, with Caesar’s Palace, Bellagio and Paris-Las Vegas all in the frame.
Of all the suggestions above, Las Vegas is probably the
least practical in terms of being able to draw a big enough crowd to ensure an
outdoor game is profitable for the league, which the big baseball or football stadium
games are, which, of course, is why the NHL wants to have more. Impractical,
certainly, but can you imagine better visuals than a game on the Strip or somewhere
close by the big resort-casinos? I can’t.
Wanna talk hockey? Find me on Twitter @akitchener
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