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New Year with hockey: tomorrow at 19 Italian appointment with the 11th edition of the Winter Classic. Chicago and Boston will go down the track for the traditional outdoor game.
Monday 31 December 2018 7 minutes reading time
Low temperatures. The wind that cuts the cheeks. Some snowflakes. And then that noise of skates that scratch the ice. The disk, the stick. And the charge on the balustrade, before the siren and the explosion of joy of thousands and thousands of spectators. Sounds. Emotions. Those sensations of a primordial hockey. Because it was born and so the pioneers had imagined it: outdoors. Between snow and ice. Here we are. Tomorrow, New Year's Day, the appointment with the Winter Classic of NHL will be renewed. The eleventh edition of the outdoor match will be held at the Notre Dame Stadium in Chicago between the Blackhawks and the Boston Bruins. Two Original Six, to make the atmosphere even more magical. And in fact the two teams, for the occasion, will wear special jackets that recall the styles of the '30s. For a further touch that tastes of the past. An atmosphere that has always enveloped these games.
In fact, the Winter Classic was not the first NHL event of its kind and today it is not even the only one. The first official regular season game played in an outdoor stadium was the Heritage Classic on November 22, 2003 at Edmonton's Commonwealth Stadium between the Oilers and the Montreal Canadiens. And it could only be a Canadian derby the first ever. Heritage: tradition, cultural heritage, historical heritage if we want to translate it into Italian. Over 57 thousand people attended, in the cold, that historic game won 4-3 by Montreal. For the time it was the absolute record of spectators in the NHL.
Yet it took over four years before the NHL decided to organize another outdoor game, an outdoor game. And it was the first Winter Classic, played on 1 January 2008 near Buffalo, between the Sabers and the Pittsburgh Penguins, who won 2-1 at the shootouts in front of over 71 thousand spectators. New record, which convinced the NHL to make this appointment annual. And so it was, apart from the 2013 edition canceled due to the lockout. In fact, simply postponed to the following year: January 1, 2014, at Michigan Stadium in Detroit, among the Red Wings and the Toronto Maple Leafs, the first Canadian team to participate in a Winter Classic. And the guests won 3-2 to the shootouts in front of 105 thousand spectators. To date, an all time record for a game of NHL.
Outdoor races have increased over the years. Just 2014 recorded the peak: well six outdoor games. In addition to the Winter Classic, which remained the traditional appointment at the beginning of the year, the Stadium Series were added and the Heritage Classic, the Canadian derby, was back in 2011, 2014 and 2016. In addition, two special outdoor games were held in 2017 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the NHL. On January 1, 2017 the Centennial Game at BMO Field in Toronto between the Maple Leafs and the Detroit Red Wings, also won on this occasion by the Canadians for 5-4 extra time. In the new season, then, December 16, 2017, the celebrations for the centenary reached their peak with the NHL 100 Classic in Ottawa, between the hosts of the Senators and the Montreal Canadiens in honor of the first ever NHL race that was disputed between the same two teams in December 1917.
At the moment there are 25 official outdoor games played in NHL in which 23 teams have participated in the total 31. The most present franchise is the Chicago Blackhawks, which tomorrow are preparing to make their sixth appearance. They only won once in the previous five. Record immaculate, however, for the New York Rangers, who have won four outdoor games in four.
For this year, in addition to tomorrow's Winter Classic, there will be a Stadium Series match on February 23rd at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia between the Flyers and the Pittsburgh Penguins. This is the revenge of last year, when the two teams faced each other at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh and the Penguins won 4-2.
The Winter Classic, in Italy, will be broadcast live tomorrow at 7pm on DAZN.
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