The History of outdoor NHL games in America all started back
in 1991. The New York Rangers faced
against the Los Angeles Kings in a preseason exhibition game at Caesars Palace
in Las Vegas, Nevada. That’s right in
the middle of the desert! Temperatures
were at a high of 95 degrees Fahrenheit at one point but that didn’t stop Wayne
Gretzky and Kings from scoring 5 unanswered goals to beat the Rangers and
Messier, 5-2. Since then, the NHL has
become better at picking locations for these outdoor games.
The Winter Classic
Thirteen years later NBC Sports Executive VP Von
Miller proposed the idea of an outside hockey game played each year on New
Year’s Day to the NHL. The NHL denied
the proposal, calling it an absurd plan that would be impossible to make
happen.
However from the time period from 2004-2007 NHL TV ratings,
ticket sales, and merchandise sales dropped tremendously. So in 2008 the NHL returned to Miller and
accepted his proposal.
The first ever Winter Classic would be played at Ralph
Wilson Stadium the home of the Buffalo Bills in a game consisting of the
Penguins and Sabres. The Penguins won
2-1 in a shootout and America loved it.
The NHL attendance record at the time was broken. The following year the game was played at
Wrigley Field between the Red Wings and Blackhawks. This heated rivalry produced the highest TV
rating of NHL game in 33 years! So on a
day packed full of College Football, some people turned off the Aunt Jemima
Bowl between East Alabama and Wyoming State to watch a hockey game, how dare
they! But nobody had ever seen a hockey
game Wrigley Field before! This back and
forth game ended in a Redwings 6-4 win and began the Winter Classic tradition.
In 2012 (one year before the lockout) the Winter Classic was
to be played on January 1st at Citizens Bank Park, between the
Rangers and Flyers, like always. However the game was moved to January 2,
because of the NFL’s contract with NBC that no NHL games could be aired on
Sundays (during football season). So now
everything is set for the game to start at 1PM January 2nd right,
not so fast. The ice began to melt and
the game time had to be pushed back two hours.
During this 2-hour delay there are very few people who stayed tuned to
NBC and enjoyed the elongated and exaggerated pre-game, that 10 minutes through
lacks interesting content. Most tune
their TVs to ESPN and watch the Outback Bowl featuring Michigan State and
Georgia. Halfway through the game it
looked like a blowout favoring Georgia.
But in the 3rd Quarter Michigan State made a spectacular come
back, that stretched the game into 3 overtimes before Michigan State could come
up with a win. Nobody could take their
eyes off the Outback Bowl and the 2012 Winter Classic had the lowest TV ratings
of any Winter Classic. New York was had
the 4th highest ratings of major cities. This was the first time the two host cities
didn’t have the two highest ratings.
The Winter Classic was a clique now it was no longer a
waited upon tradition like the Rose Bowl or Olympics. So the NHL had to thing a bigger brighter
idea. Why don’t we add a Canadian team
to the Winter Classic! And so the 2013
Winter Classic was set to be the Maple Leafs against the Redwings. Unfortunately the Lockout inevitable
prevented this Winter Classic and during the Lockout the NHL thought there was
the need to find two solutions for its one problem.
Coors Light Stadium Series
One outdoor game a year put the NHL back on the charts and
made it popular again. However by 2012
the Winter Classic had lost its swagger.
So the NHL had a brilliant solution to add Canada to the tradition. A brilliant ide however it was ruined by a 2nd
unasked for solution.
Why is football so popular?
Because it airs once a week, it keeps people waiting; excitement builds
up over the course of the week. Why can
some people not stand baseball? There
are 162 a year for each team that means there are 2,430 games a year, that’s way
too many for some people. ONE outdoor
game a year started a great tradition not FIVE!
NHL fans could get excited for on outdoor game a year, but not for five
outdoor games over the course of 33 days.
The NHL’s new idea was the Coors Light Stadium Series. The Rocky Mountains are going to be flooded
with Coors Light Ice, (which would change color go indicate the ice was melting). No just kidding, it does sound glamorous, but
the NHL’s idea of the Coors Light Stadium Series is very different. Their idea is to play an additional four
outdoor games across the country to profit financially. “Coors Light” is added to the idea, simply as
a sponsor: a.k.a more money. Now on top
of the Winter Classic the NHL is cramming four more outdoor games into a timespan
of just over a month and desolating the significance of the Winter Classic.
Despite my negative feeling towards these games, they still
have a relevance to them. Every year at
the end of the season we see how 3 points are the difference between the 3rd
or 6th seed or the 9th or
8th seed. So every point matters and while it might be
distracting to play in -8 degrees at Yankee Stadium or 60+ degrees at Dodger
stadium the teams will still be concentrated on winning.
Below are the dates and locations of the Coors Light
Stadium Series.
Ducks @ Kings
Dodgers Stadium, Los Angels, California
January 25th, 2014
Rangers @ Devils
Yankee Stadium, New York, New York
January 26th, 2014
Rangers @ Devils
Yankee Stadium, New York, New York
January 29th, 2014
Penguins @ Blackhawks
Soldier Field, Chicago, Illinois
March 1st, 2014
In the end the NHL will benefit from the Stadium
Series. They will profit tremendously,
off ticket sales, sponsors, and merchandise.
However these four extra games have ruined the unique one-day a year
experience of the Winter Classic.
American Outdoor hockey in the NHL started with Wayne
Gretzky playing Messier’s Rangers in the middle of the desert. Then slowly climbing the hill of popularity, as it made its way up to Buffalo, west to Chicago, and north again to Boston and
before you knew it the tradition of the Winter Classic had began. Unfortunately over the years money and greed
over took the simple idea of watching hockey where it all started. Maybe it was better in the beginning nice and
simple, very imperfect yes, but wasn’t that what it was like when it all began.
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