Another Year, Another Great NHL Winter Classic

Despite the outcome of the game – the Boston Bruins were routed 5-1 at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts, and, by the estimate of many who see the Bruins on a regular basis, turned in their worst game in some time – there’s no doubt that the 2016 edition if what has become the National Hockey League’s premiere regular season showcase game was a successful one.

When you have a capacity crowd at an NFL stadium for a hockey game, it can only mean good things. Sure, the quality of the game wasn’t great, but the fact that people tune in for the spectacle is the main thing. Let’s be honest, the quality of a game on outdoor ice, hastily manufactured for this New Year’s Day showcase has never been great. It’s not like skating on an indoor rink in any given NHL arena – ask any honest player and they’ll tell you as much. Ask Bruins star Denis Seidenberg, and he’ll gladly give you an assessment of the playing surface, as he did in the days leading up to his team’s capitulation.

No, what makes the Winter Classic such a ratings winner for NBC and it’s Canadian partners, is the spectacle. The players grew up playing on outdoor rinks, and it’s so did many of the people who cram into football stadiums and baseball parks for these games.

The romance of the game of hockey is something you hear often in the lead-up to the Winter Classic (and the myriad other outdoor games the NHL now uses as cash cows) and there’s an element of truth to it. The event is a throwback to the formative days for every one of the players out there, pick-up hockey on a frozen lake writ large. Of course, the stakes are much higher.

In reality, the contest itself doesn’t matter. It comes in secondary to the spectacle, and in 2016, the NHL certainly helped themselves by sending arguably the greatest rivalry in hockey outdoors. Boston and Montreal is a contest that is mentioned with reverence and awe, and the two Original Six franchises have faced each other more than 900 times in history. There’s genuine hatred between the two teams and their fan bases.

When you send the B’s and Habs to the Outdoor Classic, you’re guaranteeing plenty of interest and plenty of press. Both teams were very busy in the lead-up to the game, doing more media than any player does outside of the Stanley Cup Final. Montreal’s presence helps television numbers and general engagement in Canada – not that the Great White North really needs help when it comes to people engaging with hockey – and TV numbers for such a well-known rivalry. You’re guaranteed some animosity on the ice, and some off the ice, too. It engages fans, especially those in the nosebleeds, where you just about need the Hubble Space Telescope to see the puck.

I’ve always maintained that the Winter Classic works best when you have either a great rivalry or play the game in a famous stadium. In the past, we’ve seen classic rivalries like the Rangers and Philadelphia, Chicago and Detroit, Chicago and Toronto and a modern-day one in the shape of Pittsburgh and Washington. We’ve also seen less exciting rivalries, like Boston/Philadelphia, but they key there was that the game took place in Fenway Park, as historic a venue as there is anywhere in sport.

Last year missed the mark – the NHL sent Chicago and Washington to the home of Major League Baseball’s Washington Nationals. That game featured two teams with no real rivalry in a venue less than a decade old. Clearly, the League wanted Ovechkin, Kane and Toews in the same game. They got it, and a pretty good game, but it lacked the buzz of previous years. It showed with lower television ratings, the event labelled a disappointment in some circles as a result.

This year, there were stories galore. The rivalry itself, and how it affects players on both sides. Or, how about the Canadiens goalie Mike Condon? He was born in Massachusetts, supporting the Bruins and Patriots and found himself on the opposite team, playing a blinder of a game. The return of small forward Brendan Gallagher to spark the Canadiens, after Montreal had suffered through a putrid December without him in the line-up was a significant story. The week-long event was so big that there were more than 42,000 people in attendance for an alumni game in the lead-up.

The buzz for this year reminded me of early iterations of the concept. Somehow, despite the other outdoor games, this New Year’s Day staple has retained it’s pulling power. I love seeing non-hockey people tune in and invariably come away fans. It’s a great way to introduce people to the sport, even if they’re just folks tuning out of college football games because their teams were getting drubbed.

Yes, maybe we would have seen a better contest on better ice inside TD Garden in Boston or the Bell Centre in Montreal – although, the way the Bruins played, they’d stink up whatever venue the game was scheduled in – but nothing beats the spectacle of New Year’s Day outside, and now, the National Hockey League has it down to a fine art.

Is it New Year’s Day 2017 yet?

Opinion: Is the NHL’s Winter Classic Losing It’s Appeal?

Some, depending on who they are and where they’re from, would answer yes to the above question.

They say that after a season where the National Hockey League played a Winter Classic, four Stadium Series games – two in Yankee Stadium, one at Chicago’s Soldier Field and one in Dodger Stadium – as well as a Heritage Classic game in a covered stadium in Vancouver (that still counts, right?) the usual magic just isn’t there ahead of the Washington Capitals clash with the Chicago Blackhawks at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. on New Year’s Day.

Maybe they’re right, and only television ratings will tell the true story about those non-diehard fans who tune in often only once a year, at midday (or thereabouts) on New Year’s Day for the spectacle of outdoor hockey.

Let’s for a moment say I agree with those who say the concept is tired – I don’t, not completely – and so turn my attention to a handful of reasons why, maybe, possibly, in 2014/15, the NHL’s premiere product has lost a little of it’s gimmicky spectacular.

Here are just a few possibilities as we wait to see what the game and what NBC’s ratings will deliver:

Road to the Winter Classic Documentary

Yes, it’s on and it’s as good as ever, but the problem is that the warts-and-all documentary annually featuring the two teams in the Winter Classic for a few weeks before and during the game is on EPIX this year, rather than it’s regular home, HBO, and most hockey fans I’ve surveyed don’t even know that the channel existed, let alone have it in their cable package. Disappointingly, FOX Sports in Australia isn’t broadcasting the excellent documentary series this year.

Ever since it’s debut year in 2010, Road to the Winter Classic has always been a big part of the lead-up to the game itself, and there’s no doubt that the series doesn’t have as many eyeballs this year as it has in previous years. That’s a shame, because the series is as strong as ever, despite the absence – so far, anyway – of quirky guys, the likes of Ilya Bryzgalov, who stole the show ahead of the 2012 game.

Aside from being great television for hockey fans, the documentary series also ropes in fresh sets of eyes on HBO each week and at least helps make them aware that there’s an outdoor game on New Year’s Day, with a cast of players and coaches that the average fan, through watching the show, know pretty well. The NHL needs to get the series back on a more accessible channel.

College Football

Ever since the first Winter Classic was played in a blizzard in Buffalo, the monopoly that college football once had on New Year’s Day disappeared. The thing is, college football roars back into prominence this year with two semi-finals ahead of the sport’s National Championship Game on New Year’s Day. It may not have been a deliberate move to squash the Winter Classic momentum, but it’ll have that affect regardless.

There’s saturation coverage of the four teams and two Bowl games they’ll contest on the first of the year, and, of course, that’s taken away some eyes and ears from the Winter Classic.  After all, football is king in America.

Venue

Last year, the NHL could trumpet the arrival of hockey at Michigan Stadium. Of course, the Big House is one of those great sporting arenas, and the challenge was to pack more than 100,000 hockey fans into the venue. The Maple Leafs and the Red Wings took to the ice in front of a mammoth crowd in a snowstorm and the pictures, beamed around the world, were spectacular.

Sad to say, this year’s Winter Classic will be played at a venue with far less tradition. In fact, there’s very little history to speak of in Nationals Park, which was opened only in. It’s not just the same, and you can’t create tradition.  It just doesn’t work like that.

There’s always been loose talk of a game on the National Mall in downtown Washington D.C. – a great spectacle, for sure, but how many people could you realistically get into a venue there? – and at FedEx Field, where the Washington NFL franchise is based, but neither of those came to fruition, and given the NHL clearly wanted a Winter Classic in the nation’s capital, Nationals Park was the next best solution.

They have to play it somewhere, right? The thing is, going from the Big House to Nationals Park isn’t like going from Wrigley Field in ‘09 to Fenway Park a year later. I’ve written previously about sending the Winter Classic to new markets and featuring new teams and new venues.

As an aside, Minnesota deserves an outdoor game, such is the great hockey history up there. Target Field in Minnesota could work, and the Gophers successfully staged an outdoor NCAA game last year in their football stadium. There are choices aplenty. Truly, though, the League needs to look for a venue with history and plant the Winter Classic there next year. The concept’s always worked best when it’s held in a place like Wrigley or Fenway or the Big House.

Teams

Given that NBC came up with the idea of the Winter Classic, it’s not a huge surprise that they dictate who gets to play, and we’ve seen a string of teams who bring with them huge ratings – Washington with Ovechkin, Pittsburgh with Crosby, Chicago with Toews and Boston with Chara – taking the game outdoors. The thing is, people are starting to tire of seeing the same faces. In fact, after the Capitals/Blackhawks game, we’ll have seen the Caps, Hawks, Penguins, and Red Wings twice.

It’s way past time to bring in new players and teams to the spectacle. Toews, Chara, Ovechkin and Crosby became stars by way of television coverage of their early exploits, and the same could happen to regional superstars like, say, Zach Parise or Ryan Suter of Minnesota, Tyler Seguin of Dallas or, hell, even the raft of young talent on the New York Islanders roster.

The way to make the entire League stronger is to include smaller teams in the sport’s biggest spectacle. It’s a sure-fire way to make an inclusive event even more so.

Minnesota Misses Out on NHL Outdoor Hockey in 2015

Twin media reports over the last few days have let the cat out of the bag where the location and teams involved in the two NHL outdoor games to be played in season 2014-15. 

In the now familiar Winter Classic on New Year’s Day, Alexander Ovechkin’s Washington Capitals will host the Chicago Blackhawks at the beautiful Nationals Park – as nice a Major League venue as there is in America – and, later in the year, an outdoor game will be staged at AT&T Park in San Francisco, the spectacular home of the San Francisco Giants – and the most beautiful ballpark in America, from a scenery standpoint – rumoured to be featuring that team from across the Bay, the San Jose Sharks and the defending Stanley Cup Champions, the Los Angeles Kings.

On the surface, those are good match-ups. The League will benefit from star power in both games, particularly with Ovechkin, Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane lining up on New Year’s Day and the likes of Jeff Carter, Patrick Marleau, Jonathan Quick and Joe Pavelski on show at AT&T Park, where seats high up in the bleachers behind home plate offer epic views of sunsets over the imposing Bay Bridge, but there’s one element that Commissioner Bettman and his planners have overlooked: the State of Hockey.

That’s right, Minnesota. Where Detroit is deservedly labelled Hockeytown, the Land of 10,000 Lakes is undoubtedly the state where hockey is most passionately followed. The place is a glacial hotbed of hockey, and the good folks way up north, rival Canada when it comes to obsession and passion for the great game. 

From great high school rivalries, like Warroad High vs. Roseau High, through to perennially contending NCAA programs like University of Minnesota-Duluth and the Golden Gophers of the University of Minnesota – or, as it’s known simply up there, The U. There’s also the Minnesota Wild of the NHL (and the famed Minnesota North Stars before them).

When you look at the great names of American hockey, so many of them come from Minnesota or have strong Minnesotan ties – and, interestingly, no US men’s hockey team as ever won Gold without at least one player from Warroad, Minnesota on the roster.

From coaches like 1980 Miracle on Ice hero Herb Brooks, long-serving administrators like the great Lou Nanne, NCAA record-holders like Tim Harrer, and so many of the core of that Miracle on Ice team – Neal Broten, Mike Ramsey and Dave Christian, amongst others – you’re looking at an all-star line-up of USA hockey talent stretching back decades.

That rich history makes the NHL’s decision to not hand the Wild an outdoor contest next season a joke. Moreover, it’s a slap in the face to so much tradition. Not that I am against growing the game into non-traditional markets, and not because I don’t think a game at AT&T Park won’t be great, but Bettman and co seem so obsessed with pushing the game forth into newer markets, at the expense of places where hockey has been giant for decades.

When the North Stars were sold and went to Dallas to become the Stars, the state of Minnesota could’ve turned its collective back on professional hockey. Instead, when the Wild, a start-up franchise that arrived in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St Paul in 1997, they were welcomed with open arms, the hockey-mad people up there forgetting the injustice that the NHL allowed, and the years they went – long, frustrating years, as every Minnesotan hockey fan will attest – without an NHL presence took that team into their hearts.

Nearly twenty years later, and the Wild are on the rise, thanks to the acquisition of prized free-agents Ryan Suter and Zach Parise a few seasons back. 2013-14 saw Mike Yeo’s squad reach the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, ousting the more favoured Colorado Avalanche in seven games prior to losing to Chicago. The atmosphere at Xcel Energy Arena is as good as it is anywhere in the League. Trust me: you haven’t seen hockey ‘til you’ve see it at The X.

Hockey fans in Minnesota haven’t had it easy. With the glut of outdoor games last year, and the announcement of multiple games going forward – two next year, and probably not much more than that in future seasons – I was certain that the Wild would get a look-in by now.

Apparently, I was mistaken. I wrote last year that a game at Target Field, where the Twins play Major League baseball, or TCF Stadium, home of the U’s football team , would be a rip-roaring success. I mean, there was a crowd of nearly 40,000 for a Gopher NCAA outdoor game, the Hockey City Classic, and that was on a bitterly cold night. Imagine what sort of buzz an NHL contest would generate?

I suggested that an NHL outdoor game in Minnesota would be a perfect way to honour and pay tribute to Minnesota hockey tradition and royalty. Bring in the former North Star greats, throw in the greatest names from the University of Minnesota’s incredible hockey program and you have a cavalcade of hockey legends who’d surely be chomping at the bit to be involved, many of whom have won NCAA Championships, Olympic gold medals or Stanley Cups. A few lucky ones have won all three.

Personally, I’d love to see the Wild against the Dallas Stars, just for some historic irony, but, hell, throw the Blackhawks in, and allow the star power of Toews and Kane to help generate a national audience. But, it really doesn’t matter who the Wild play, nor where in Minnesota they play, just that they do. Now that the great North Star Mike Modano has been announced as an inductee into the Pro Hockey Hall of Fame, there’s even more reason for the League to get this an outdoor spectacle happening.

Hockey relies on the passion of – compared to football, basketball and even baseball – a small and loyal fan base to keep the sport ticking over. Until the NHL schedules an outdoor game in Minnesota, they’re short-changing a large proportion of those fans who’ve endured so much already.

Come on, Commissioner: do the right thing here.

Opinion: The Minnesota Wild Deserve an NHL Winter Classic

Up north, in the Land of One Hundred Thousands Lakes, they outdo Detroit handily. Yes, the capital of Michigan is known colloquially and promotionally as Hockeytown, USA, but Minnesota lays claim – rightfully – to the proud honour of being the (American) State of Hockey. Passion for the greatest game on ice is Canadian-like once you come across the Minnesota border. Up there, men become heroes on the ice. More often than not, heroes become legends.

The list of great Minnesota hockey men who’ve gone onto bigger and better things is as endless as it is important to the sport: there’s Larry Brooks, coach of the 1980 Miracle on Ice; some of the college kids who were on-ice heroes in 1980 Rob McClanahan, Mike Ramsey, Dave Christian, Steve Christoff and Mark Pavelich; the Broten brothers, Aaron and Neal; legendary John Mayasich and perhaps the greatest of them all, the Godfather of Minnesota hockey, the legendary John Mariucci.

In all, Minnesota-born players have won countless Stanley Cup champions, tasted Gold medal success at the Olympics, and played thousands of National Hockey League games. As far as fertile environs go, there is no greater hotbed for American hockey than in Minnesota. It starts at a high school level, where Friday nights mean the renewal of decades-old town-on-town rivalries. It’s quite something to see, crowds in their thousands in often-dilapidated arenas cheering on their team, generations of the same family there in the stands, living second to second, every bounce and carom of the puck.

Saturday is for college hockey where the University of Minnesota – known simply as The U in Minnesota – has recorded five NCAA National Championship victories and has made the Frozen Four twenty times. If you grow up in the shadows of the Twin Cities of St Paul-Minneapolis, you’re hockey mad and want to follow in the footsteps of the Broten’s, and Ramsey’s on the hallowed ice of Mariucci Arena. You havent properly experienced college hockey until you’ve seen the Gophers play at Mariucci.

Or perhaps you’re born elsewhere, out along Minnesota’s Iron Range, when you idolised the Christoff’s of the world, or the great Brett Hull from the University of Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs. It doesn’t matter. No matter what part of Minnesota you’re born in, hockey’s in your blood. It consumes you.

In the NHL, the Minnesota North Stars had a proud tradition in the Twin Cities before politics and money took over, sending the North Stars to Dallas, and, after a pro hockey absence of too long – just ask a Minnesotan – a new franchise, the Minnesota Wold, now plays to some of the best, biggest and most knowledgeable crowds in all of hockey. Their recent acquisitions of superstars Ryan Suter and Zach Parise have the Wild rocketing upward in the Western Conference.

In the State of Hockey, even pickup games on your local frozen lake draw a crowd. In Minnesota, hockey is as important as college football is in the southland. Even if you’re just a regular visitor – like myself – you can’t help but get swept up in the obvious passion for the game. There are games on television nearly every night of the week. It’s possible to watch hockey, read hockey and think hockey twenty-four-seven.

So, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, here’s some free advice: it’s well and truly time – hell, it’s beyond time – for the League to stage a Winter Classic in Minnesota. Like putting the Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs on a rink inside Michigan Stadium, playing a game between the Minnesota Wild and, maybe, Chicago or Detroit, or as a twist, the Dallas Stars, would be a guaranteed winner. Target Field, where the Minnesota Twins play baseball in the summer, is a perfect venue.

If the NHL can manage to slot an outdoor game into a Southern California ballpark – we saw it just this weekend, with the Freeway Faceoff between Anaheim and the Los Angeles Kings at Dodger Stadium – they can certainly take an outdoor game to Minnesota. Minnesota is one of the league’s biggest American markets. Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Boston and Detroit and Chicago and Philadelphia have all had their turn hosting a Winter Classic, and other big US markets like New York City and Washington D.C. have had their teams feature in the league’s regular-season showcase. Now, it’s the turn of the Wild.

In case Bettman and co ever doubted that there would be the market for such an event, they need to look no further than last week’s Hockey City Classic, featuring both the men’s and women’s University of Minnesota hockey teams. The game was held outdoors on a temporary rink at TCF Bank Stadium, home to Gopher football during the fall months, and the crowd of 45,201, a record attendance for a hockey game in Minnesota. The Gophers won 1-0 on a Taylor Cammarata goal, and behind a 21-save shut-out by goalie Adam Wilcox. The game was only half the story. It was the atmosphere that counted. 

If Target Field isn't considered big enough for a Winter Classic, there’s a big football stadium near downtown Minneapolis that has a track record with outdoor hockey. Holding the  game on college grounds would provide a unique atmosphere – and a bigger crowd, which would surely make the NHL’s bean counters happy.

Holding a Winter Classic in Minnesota would open up a whole new realm of hockey in Minnesota. Around the NHL game, it isn't hard to foresee a festival of hockey, bigger than what ran on the Comerica Park rink in Detroit around the 2013 Winter Classic. The big Minnesota college teams – the Gophers, Minnesota-Duluth, St Cloud State, and Minnesota State – would likely have a heavy presence, as well as high school games and minor-league pro contests. 

I can imagine the great alumni games, and the occasion of a Winter Classic would be the perfect rallying cry for all the legendary Minnesota hockey personalities to come together in one place to celebrate everything that’s great about the State of Hockey. Imagine a reunion of all the Minnesota-born Miracle on Ice guys, plus the legions of guys who’ve skated for The U or Minnesota-Duluth or any other school mixing with Stanley Cup winners and Olympic medal winners. Now, that would be a celebration worthy of the great game of hockey.

Apparently 2015 is off the table. It appears likely that the Washington Capitals will take over Nationals Park and play a close rival – Philadelphia, anyone? – but the League, if it knows what’s good for it, should make an announcement soon, giving the 2016 NHL Winter Classic to the Minnesota Wild. As I alluded to earlier, there are enough teams around Minnesota with whom the Wild have, if not a blood rivalry, certainly a competitive streak brewing nicely that would provide a game-day atmosphere worthy of the outdoor showcase.

Your move, NHL.