Nov. 19/03 -
It will surely be this season's most talked about and fondly remembered NHL game, playoffs included. It marks a bold step forward for the league, but also celebrates hockey's rich heritage. Pre-game festivities include Wayne Gretzky's return to an Edmonton Oilers' uniform, for what he claims will be his one and only appearance as an NHL old-timer.
In short, the NHL Heritage Classic is a perfect opportunity to get the sports world talking about hockey, and attract a few curious folks who wouldn't know the five-hole from a fishing hole.
But when the Montreal Canadiens and Edmonton Oilers square off under the prairie night sky on Saturday, only Canada will be watching. The NHL's first outdoor game will not be televised in the United States.
It should be quite a spectacle. Edmonton's Commonwealth Stadium, a football bowl, will be iced. About 56,000 seats will be filled, doubling the record for the biggest crowd ever to watch an NHL game. Retired Oilers and Habs begin the day with the so-called "Mega-Stars" game, featuring the likes of Gretzky, Jari Kurri and Guy Lafleur. The latest rumor is that Mark Messier, whose New York Rangers do not play that night, will suit up with his old Edmonton teammates.
At 7:00 EST, the real players take over. Some have expressed concern about possible plunging temperatures. "The game is going to be particularly tough on the goaltenders," Jose Theodore told the Montreal Gazette. "The other players will have heaters on the bench and they'll be doing a lot of skating, but if there's not much action, there's a chance the goalies will get stiff. There could be a greater chance of injury if you're not warmed up."
Aside from its obvious novelty appeal, an outdoor NHL game conjures the romance of hockey's roots. Red-faced kids on a frozen pond, chasing a puck in the fading light of a winter's day - it's one of Canada's iconic images. It even appears on the five-dollar bill.
"You listened to the radio. If it was 10 below, the game was on," said Flyers' coach Ken Hitchcock, recalling the pond hockey days of his youth for the Philadelphia Inquirer. "Nowadays, if it is 9 below, you don't dare come out of your hotel room. You take cabs everywhere. Back then, you played two hours of hockey in the cold. Boy, was it ever fun."
"There was one line on the ice, one in the [bench], one in the shed. You did your shift on ice, you raced into the shed to warm up, and a lot of times you come out and there was a two-goal swing and you didn't know what was going on."
Today's hockey players, raised in suburban rinks with sophisticated training programs, are less likely to tell such stories. But pond hockey remains a shared memory for many fans, and Saturday's outdoor game will provide a direct link to that memory.
All this nostalgia means little to most Americans. But the Heritage Classic seems like a natural fit for the NHL's primary U.S. broadcaster, ESPN. ESPN and ESPN2 will both carry NCAA football on Saturday night. Perhaps a Sunday night slot with an American team involved would have made the NHL event more attractive.
Several weeks from now, the NHL will marshal all marketing forces for its annual All Star Game. The game and the weekend surrounding it comprise the biggest hard sell of the season, an all-out campaign to sell NHL hockey to new fans and new sponsors. But behind the big names and big hype, the NHL All Star Game is the most uninspired, lacklustre, lame-ass, half-hearted afternoon skate of every hockey season.
The league would have been far smarter to use the Heritage Classic as this year's primary showcase. As long as the weather holds and Jose Theodore doesn't pull a groin, there is no downside to the outdoor game. But from a marketing perspective, it provides yet another example of the NHL's ham-fisted handling of its product.
