NHL Winter Classic

The NHL Winter Classic is an annual event held by the National Hockey League (NHL) on New Year's Day where regular-season games are played outdoors, in areas hosted by NHL teams. Though largely derived from the Heritage Classic outdoor game held in Edmonton in 2003, the Winter Classic has so far only featured US-based teams, while the Heritage Classic involves Canada-based teams. The first Winter Classic was held in 2008.

View of Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park, New York during the 2008 NHL Winter Classic.

History

The Winter Classic as a television event was the brainchild of NBC Sports Executive VP Jon Miller. He pitched the idea to the NHL in 2004 "but they didn't find the concept workable" ^[1] In December 2006, Miller found an ally in then Executive VP/Business & Media John Collins who embraced the idea.^[2][3] The first Winter Classic was held January 1, 2008, between the Buffalo Sabres and Pittsburgh Penguins at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park, New York. This game had an NHL-record crowd of 71,217 fans in attendance. The success of the 2008 NHL Winter Classic led the NHL to schedule a second one for 2009, held at Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois, on January 1, 2009, matching the Detroit Red Wings against the Chicago Blackhawks. This game had the highest American television ratings of any hockey game in 33 years. The success of the 2009 NHL Winter Classic has solidified "The Classic" as an annual event from then on.

The third Winter Classic was held at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 1, 2010, featuring the Boston Bruins and the Philadelphia Flyers. The result was a dramatic 2–1 overtime win for Boston, making the Bruins the first home team to win an NHL outdoor game. The 2011 game was played at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Washington Capitals with Washington winning 3–1.

Weather has proven to affect the game, with the 2011 classic being delayed due to rain. Outdoor effects of wind and sun glare may give an unfair advantage to one team, so the NHL sometimes modifies the third and overtime periods. In this case, play is stopped at the midway point and teams switch directions. This option was exercised in 2008 and again in 2011.

The Winter Classic was officially made a permanent part of the NHL schedule through at least January 1, 2021, as part of the league's television contract with NBC and Versus.

The 2012 Winter Classic in Philadelphia will not be played on New Year's Day, as that falls on a Sunday in 2012. Instead, following precedent set by college football's bowl games (which move their games to Monday when January 1 lands on Sunday), the game will take place on January 2, 2012. The game will be played at Citizens Bank Park, home of the Philadelphia Phillies. Lincoln Financial Field, home of the Philadelphia Eagles, reportedly would have been the preferred site, but the Eagles have a home game scheduled for January 1, and the NHL needs approximately one week of lead time to construct the outdoor rink on the playing field.

There is already speculation that Michigan Stadium on the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor, Michigan, would be home ice for the 2013 Winter Classic on the evening of Tuesday, January 1, 2013, which would be hosted by the Detroit Red Wings. If the Winter Classic is indeed awarded to Ann Arbor, it could break the NHL's all-time single-game attendance record due to the huge (100,000 plus) capacity of Michigan Stadium.

Other NHL outdoor games

The first outdoor game to feature an NHL team was held on February 2, 1954.^[4] The Detroit Red Wings played an exhibition game on an outdoor ice surface, in 21 °F (−6 °C) degree weather, against inmates at Michigan's Marquette Branch Prison. After the first period the Red Wings led in the game 18–0; the score for the rest of the game was not kept.^[5]

The first outdoor game between two NHL teams was an official pre-season match-up on September 27, 1991. The game took place in the parking lot of Caesars' Palace^[6] in Las Vegas, Nevada, and featured the Los Angeles Kings and the New York Rangers.^[7] The process of keeping the ice cool in the desert heat required three times as much coolant as a standard NHL rink.^[8] There were few problems despite temperatures that reached 95 °F (35 °C) during the day and a game time temperature of 80 °F (27 °C).^[8] During the contest grasshoppers began to jump onto the ice, where they would freeze or drown in water used to maintain the ice, by the end of the second period the ice was littered with the bugs.^[7] Nearly 14,000 fans watched the Kings defeat the Rangers 5–2.^[9] Since 1997, the Los Angeles Kings have returned to Las Vegas, though indoors, to play an annual preseason game in the Frozen Fury series.

The first regular season outdoor game in the history of the National Hockey League took place on November 22, 2003, at Edmonton's Commonwealth Stadium. The 2003 Heritage Classic was played between the Edmonton Oilers and the Montreal Canadiens. A second Heritage Classic was played on February 20, 2011, at McMahon Stadium in Calgary between the Calgary Flames and the Montreal Canadiens.

List of NHL Winter Classics

Bolded teams denote winners

Year	Site	Home team	Away team	Score	Attendance
2008	Ralph Wilson Stadium, Orchard Park, New York	Buffalo Sabres	Pittsburgh Penguins	2–1 (SO)	71,217
2009	Wrigley Field, Chicago, Illinois	Chicago Blackhawks	Detroit Red Wings	6–4	40,818
2010	Fenway Park, Boston, Massachusetts	Boston Bruins	Philadelphia Flyers	2–1 (OT)	38,112
2011	Heinz Field, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania	Pittsburgh Penguins	Washington Capitals	3–1	68,111
2012	Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania	Philadelphia Flyers	New York Rangers	TBD	TBD

Notes:

• The 2008 Winter Classic was colloquially called the "Ice Bowl" around Buffalo. It was also the only Winter Classic (as of 2011) to have a shootout. It was voted the best Winter Classic in an NHL.com poll.^{[citation needed]}
• The 2009 Winter Classic was the first to feature two Original Six teams, as well as the first to be played in a baseball stadium.
• The 2010 Winter Classic was the first to be won by the home team. It was also the first without Ty Conklin as a goalie and Brian Campbell as a defenseman. Both played for Buffalo in the 2008 Winter Classic. Conklin played for Detroit and Campbell played for Chicago in the 2009 Winter Classic. This Winter Classic was also the first containing an official fight, a bout that featured Philadelphia's Dan Carcillo scrapping with Boston's Shawn Thornton.
• The 2011 Winter Classic was the second involving the Pittsburgh Penguins. This was the first weekend Winter Classic and the first time the game was delayed from its original start time, thus the first to air in prime time. 2011 was also the first time it rained during the Winter Classic.^[10]

Throwback sweaters

Ever since the first Heritage Classic it has been tradition to wear throwback or retro-style sweaters. The retro sweaters worn in the Winter Classic have been as follows:

• 2008 Pittsburgh Penguins: 1970–71
• 2008 Buffalo Sabres: 1970–71
• 2009 Detroit Red Wings: 1926–27 Detroit Cougars
• 2009 Chicago Blackhawks: 1935–36 design with 1948–49 logo
• 2010 Philadelphia Flyers: 1973–74 with modern font for their numbers and a black nameplate
• 2010 Boston Bruins: 1958–59 design with brown stripes instead of black and 1948–49 inspired logo
• 2011 Washington Capitals: 1974–75
• 2011 Pittsburgh Penguins: 1967–68 sweater with colors reversed and crest logo instead of diagonal "Pittsburgh" lettering that appeared on original jerseys

The throwback sweaters are very popular with fans, and teams have often continued to wear them after the Winter Classic. The Penguins and Blackhawks made their Winter Classic sweaters their alternates the next season. The Flyers went a step further and made their Winter Classic sweaters their road sweaters for 2010–11. The Sabres had already been using a variation of their throwback sweater prior to their appearance (that particular season, there were no third sweaters anywhere in the league) and adopted a slightly updated version of the sweaters as their main uniform in 2010–11, while the 2011 conestants, the Penguins and Capitals, will wear their classic unis as third jerseys in 2011-12.

Winter Classic–related playoff trends

Since the inception of the NHL's Winter Classic outdoor game starting during the 2007–08 NHL season, the away team in each instance has gone on to the Stanley Cup Finals only to lose that series. The 2007–2008 Pittsburgh Penguins were the visiting team against the 2007–2008 Buffalo Sabres, only to lose to the Detroit Red Wings in the 2008 Finals. The 2008–2009 Detroit Red Wings visited the 2008–2009 Chicago Blackhawks, only to lose to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 2009 Finals. The 2009–2010 Philadelphia Flyers visited the 2009–2010 Boston Bruins, only to go on to lose to the Chicago Blackhawks in the 2010 Finals. The Washington Capitals would break this trend, losing in the 2011 Eastern Conference Semifinals.

Also of note, though, one of the teams in the Winter Classic games (more specifically, the team wearing the dark jersey) has gone on to win the Stanley Cup in the subsequent season, starting with the Pittsburgh Penguins winning the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals after their 2008 Winter Classic victory, and the Chicago Blackhawks winning the 2010 Stanley Cup Finals after their loss in the 2009 Winter Classic. The Boston Bruins, winners of the 2010 Winter Classic, later won the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals.

Impact

The Winter Classic has proven to be a ratings success for the league in the United States and is regularly the league's most watched regular season contest (in the US), rivaling the ratings for the Stanley Cup. Its popularity in the United States led to the American Hockey League adopting a similar contest in 2010, the AHL Outdoor Classic, which it reprised in 2011. Despite the overwhelming popularity of the original Heritage Classic between the Montreal Canadiens and the Edmonton Oilers in 2003, the popularity of the Winter Classic in Canada is low and declining. On Canada's CBC Television network, the Winter Classic has lower ratings than its weekly regular season telecasts Hockey Night in Canada. This has been attributed to the lack of Canadian teams in any of the Winter Classics and has led to a revival of the all-Canadian Heritage Classic.

Sports Illustrated columnist Dan Shaughnessy said of the new Winter Classic, “[N]ow hockey owns New Year's Day the way baseball owns the Fourth of July and football owns Thanksgiving.”^[11]

Future sites

Due to the popularity of the event, nearly every team has requested to participate in the Winter Classic either as the host or the visiting team. Numerous locations have been mentioned in the media as potential sites for future Winter Classics, including Citi Field, the Rose Bowl,^[12] Cowboys Stadium, Target Field, FedEx Field, Sun Devil Stadium,Busch Stadium, Michigan Stadium, Coors Field, Yankee Stadium, Ohio Stadium, Comerica Park, MetLife Stadium, Gillette Stadium, and even non-sports venues like the Las Vegas Strip, the National Mall, or Central Park.^{[13][14][15][16][17][18]}

The next Winter Classic will take place on January 2, 2012, at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Flyers will host the New York Rangers on the first Winter Classic to not be played on New Year's Day.

See also

Ice hockey portal

• Heritage Classic
• List of NHL Winter Classic broadcasters
• Cold War (ice hockey)
• Pond hockey
• AHL Outdoor Classic
• The Big Chill at the Big House

References

1. ^ Wyshynski, Greg. “Chatting with NBC Sports executive producer Sam Flood about Winter Classic, cable cam for hockey, Mike Milbury and HBO '24/7'”, “Puck Daddy,” December 21, 2010
2. ^ Brink, Bill. “Winter Classic is a cool concept”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, December 26, 2010
3. ^ Dowbiggen, Bruce. “How hockey found its signature moment”, The Globe and Mail, December 30, 2010
4. ^ "Detroit Red Wings Head for Prison", The Milwaukee Journal, February 2, 1954, pg. 13
5. ^ "Red Wings Played Prison Hockey Team In 1954". Greatest Hockey Legends.com. 2010-03-24. http://www.greatesthockeylegends.com/2010/03/red-wings-played-prison-hockey-team-in.html. Retrieved 2011-02-16. 
6. ^ Springer, Steve (1991-08-27). "Ice in Desert? It's No Mirage Hockey: Kings, Rangers play in Caesars Palace parking lot tonight.". Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/1991-09-27/sports/sp-2929_1_parking-lot. Retrieved 2010-11-24. 
7. ^ ^{a b} Huskey, Melody (2008-12-31). "Kings No Stranger To Outdoor Game". http://kings.nhl.com/club/news.htm?bcid=401141. Retrieved 2010-11-24. 
8. ^ ^{a b} Thomas, Robert (1991-08-29). "1991-1992 N.H.L. SEASON; Gamble Works: Rangers Play In Las Vegas". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE3DD133AF93AA1575AC0A967958260. Retrieved 2010-11-24. 
9. ^ "Save the Date - Frozen Fury XIII - OCT. 2, 2010 Take A Look Back at the history of Frozen Fury". http://kings.nhl.com/club/page.htm?bcid=6761. Retrieved 2010-11-24. 
10. ^ Rosen, Dan. "League changes Winter Classic". http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=547980. 
11. ^ Shaughnessy, Dan. “NHL's Winter Classic makes every New Year's Day a hockey day”, “Sports Illustrated,” December 28, 2009
12. ^ The Rose Bowl is unlikely to host a Winter Classic due to the fact that it hosts the Rose Bowl Game on New Year's Day.
13. ^ "Rose Bowl among candidates for 2010 Winter Classic". Tsn.ca. 2009-01-15. http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=263315. Retrieved 2011-02-16. 
14. ^ "Winter Classic Coming to the District?". NBC Washington. 2010-12-29. http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/sports/DC-Winter-Classic-Coming-to-the-District-112610134.html. Retrieved 2011-02-16. 
15. ^ Posted: 2:25 AM, January 2, 2011 (2011-01-02). "How about Central Park for next Winter Classic?". NYPOST.com. http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/more_sports/where_next_how_about_central_park_LPysyHzAWgMKtKHtxpuzSL. Retrieved 2011-02-16. 
16. ^ Rutherford, Jeremy (2011-01-01). "Blues owner pushing for Winter Classic at Busch". Stltoday.com. http://www.stltoday.com/sports/hockey/professional/article_bcfdbe15-6bda-56cf-b821-9cfb7961093b.html. Retrieved 2011-02-16. 
17. ^ "Winter Classic Headed to Central Park?". Csnphilly.com. 2011-01-03. http://www.csnphilly.com/01/03/11/Winter-Classic-Headed-to-Central-Park/landing_word_hockey.html?blockID=383827&feedID=4682. Retrieved 2011-02-16. 
18. ^ Wyshynski, Greg (2011-02-12). "The top 30 future locations for NHL Winter Classic games - Puck Daddy - NHL - Yahoo! Sports". Sports.yahoo.com. http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/The-top-30-future-locations-for-NHL-Winter-Class?urn=nhl-211938. Retrieved 2011-02-16. 

External links

• Official website