The NHL has found its Super Bowl - SPTO's Blog

SPTO's Blog

The NHL has found its Super Bowl

Posted on January 15, 2009 at 10:55 PM.

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The Winter Classic has become the Super Bowl of the NHL world. I'd love to say that Gary Bettman deserves some credit but the reality is this wasn't even his idea. The whole basis of what has now been dubbed the Winter Classic was started in 2003 as the Heritage Classic in Edmonton between the Oilers and Canadiens. The Powers that be in the NHL decided to co-opt the idea and suddenly make it their own.

Anyways first here is the blurb from TSN.ca and here's the text:

Quote:


	The Las Vegas Strip, Yankee Stadium and the Rose Bowl are on the list of potential sites for the NHL's annual outdoor game, NHL chief operating officer John Collins said Wednesday. Also included on the radar are venues in Washington, Detroit and Boston. "This is really kind of becoming a destination event for hockey fans, but also sports fans," Collins told Bloomberg News. "We want to open it up to the masses." The league is already evaluating potential locations of outdoor games after the Winter Classic between the Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Blackhawks on Jan. 1 at Wrigley Field drew the highest TV ratings for the NHL in 34 years. "Of course, New York would be high on the list," Collins said. "But we also think Boston could be a really special market, and Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Denver, Montreal and Toronto. There are so many different places." Collins added that cities interested in hosting the outdoor game would have to bid for the rights, the same process the NFL uses for the Super Bowl.

I think it's safe to say the Winter Classic has become such a huge event that you've got various venues lining up or at least expressing interest in having the game played. The idea of playing the game at the Rose Bowl would be intriguing as hell but not feasible as I don't think the NHL should muck around with what's working and move the game away from the Jan. 1st date. Before you say that the ice would melt and such technology has come a long way from that hot night in 1991 when the Kings played an outdoor exhibition game in Vegas. There's now synthetic ice and other such things.

The other venue that most interests me is New Yankee Stadium. The NHL was very close to getting this year's Winter Classic at the old stadium but the lukewarm to somewhat hostile reaction to that forced them to go in another direction.

The Las Vegas strip idea is a great one and i'd go outside the box with this if they were to play a game there. Instead of having a regular season game there i'd have the All Star Game there. No ice, no actual rink per se (there would be boundaries of course) and make it a street hockey format. I know this would appeal a lot to Canadian fans (well at least the ones willing to think outside the box) as street hockey is a part of every Canadian and a lot of northern US people's lives. It would be a neat one-off event IMO.

Last but not least as you see from the blurb there the Winter Classic will be treated in much the same was as the Super Bowl and various cities/venues would have to bid to host the game. I don't necessarily like that idea as it would probably push the game away from the hockey fan and turn it into a big corporate schmoozefest. The league will have to carefully balance out bilking venues out of their money and keeping it accessible to the average fan. I also think that the NHL needs to stop ignoring the Canadian cities. If the game is played in Boston next year (Fenway) then they better schedule the Habs as their opponent. I'd also like to see some Canadian venues getting some recognition after all, the concept WAS started here.

Comments

# 1 ASB37 @ Jan 15

Good blog STPO. I really like the idea of having a "pond hockey" game as the all star game. It would really be cool to see, unfortunately I don't think it's something that would happen, but I agree with you in the Winter Classic becoming THE event for the NHL.