Kathleen, Jimmy, and I watched the 2008 NHL Winter Classic, an outdoor hockey game between the Buffalo Sabres and the Pittsburgh Penguins that took place at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park, NY. I have to officiate tomorrow afternoon in New Jersey, so we watched the game on NBC from our living room instead of driving to Buffalo to see it in person.
I thought the game was a huge success for The National Hockey League. The game drew over 71,000 fans. Reuters reported that the game was a “stunning success” and generated “unprecedented media coverage”. I think the NHL could put on two or three of these games next season in the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day as an alternative to College Football on television. I wouldn’t be surprised to see games happen in places like Yankee Stadium or Gillette Stadium in Foxboro.
I thought the visuals were excellent. Orchard Park got an unexpected lake-effect storm that caused a fairly constant snow to fall. It was windy at times. The players had to deal with imperfect conditions. It went to a shootout with the NHL poster boy Sidney Crosby winning the game for the Penguins on the last shot.
The NHL reportedly used 24 cameras, one more than they would normally use during a game in the Stanley Cup finals. The extra camera was located in an airplane. They used the shot from the airplane a few times, it only emphasized the snowy conditions.
The most interesting technical information that I heard during the game was that the rink had to be designed to accommodate the nine-inch crown of the football field at Ralph Wilson Stadium. This meant that the rink had to be built on a platform that leveled the ice surface. Inside that platform were the pipes for the cooling system with styrofoam surrounding the pipes and sand poured over the top.