Today is January 1st, New Year’s Day, and for puckheads, that can only mean one thing:
The Flyers are still in last place.
Well, ahem, yes, that’s technically true, but for the majority of hockey fans out there, the first day of the year has come to mean another installment of the NHL’s best–and, weirdly, worst–idea in a long time: the Winter Classic.
Embed from Getty ImagesThe 2018 Winter Classic at Citi Field: I feel like I’ve been here before…
The outdoor game has been a big hit for the league, but there have always been minor issues with the presentation of the game–and, apparently, folks are beginning to notice that fact. A recent video made the rounds on the web suggesting that maybe, just maybe, there might be better places to play the Winter Classic than in football and baseball stadiums that are in no way designed to host hockey games.
Gee, if only someone had had that idea sooner. Oh, wait…
Indeed, yours truly made exactly that suggestion, about three years ago. Nice to know that the rest of the sports world is beginning to catch up to the DFR.
The video linked to above says little about the inherent problems of sticking a hockey rink onto the field of a football stadium; it just makes a number of suggestions for where the game could be presented, starting with the boring and obvious (Lambeau Field) on through to the inspired (Central Park, the Washington Mall) and the ridiculous (the Grotto at the Playboy Mansion).
All well and good, but there’s little reason to believe that the NHL is listening to any of these suggestions. Today’s game is a case in point: Sabres vs. Rangers at Citi Field in New York at least has the virtue of not featuring the Blackhawks in yet another outdoor game, but I’m not sure it’s really a sparkling advertisement for the game.
“Hockey fans seem to be trapped in an ever recycling timeline with the same or similar events happening in the same or similar locations, with the same or similar cast of characters populating the holiday.”
The Rangers are a decent club, middling about in the midst of the Metropolitan divison, but I’m not sure they resonate beyond Manhattan and its immediate environs. The Sabres are even less a marquee franchise, but I don’t have the heart to object to their inclusion; a showcase game like the Winter Classic should feature all of the league’s teams at least once, or once in a while, and Buffalo should not be treated like a perpetual sports hinterland, especially by the wintriest of all sports, the NHL.
Of course, if the location of the game were inspired and inspiring enough, it really wouldn’t matter which teams were taking the ice. Toss some grandstands up in an appropriate corner of Central Park and you could import both of the Florida teams for the game and it would be worth looking at.
Instead, we get another baseball stadium, Citi Field. That’s a park that doesn’t exactly get the pulse pounding, even for the most Noo Yawk, blue-and-orange wearing denizen of Queens and its environs. There are probably guys who live in tents pitched right there in Flushing who don’t feel any particular love for Citi Field. And, if current coverage is accurate, the rink will once again be placed awkwardly in the middle of a playing surface that is not designed for the compact dimensions of the frozen pond game.
That means, once again, the televised visuals will feature a lot of dead space on the screen whenever the camera angle widens out.
That means, once again, the fans in attendance will be a long stretch away from the ice surface–meaning they will hardly be in any shots of the game and thus will have no chance at creating any ambiance surrounding the game. They’ll be watching the action on TV, just like the folks at home will be–which begs the question, why did they bother to show up? (Particularly considering the brutal cold expected for today’s game.)
And that means, once again, that the NHL is missing out on another opportunity to make a huge splash by going–quite literally–outside the box and staging their showcase game in someplace truly spectacular.
All that is, to be honest, the real lasting impression of the Winter Classic: a certain repetitiveness to the proceedings, the same sort of ho-hum, not awful but not nearly as great as it could be redundancy. All of the complaints I make here–and could make, including the it-goes-without-saying fact of the start time again being too early for New Year’s Day–are the same as I made in that Feature three years ago. Nothing is changing, despite the points in the proceedings where change is obviously needed.
Thus, if the Winter Classic has become an unofficial hockey holiday, I guess the name for this once-a-year…treat?…should be “Groundpuck Day.” Hockey fans seem to be trapped in an ever recycling timeline with the same or similar events happening in the same or similar locations, with the same or similar cast of characters populating the less-than-perfect product.
And, like any holiday happening, it also comes with a set of traditions, like that too early start time, and a superstition or two, like if one of the fans in the stands actually gets to see the puck on the ice from his seat, it means six more weeks of Flyers goalies letting in soft goals. Or some such thing.
It would be nice if these suggestions for change–mine and those proposed by others–ever earned any consideration in the league office in Toronto. Or, for that matter, in NBC’s offices in 30 Rock; after all, it’s a television show we’re talking about here, and the TV execs might want to make improvements even if the league is too satisfied (or too hidebound–they may be the same thing) to make the necessary adjustments.
But at least, as that video attests, someone else is thinking along these same lines. Perhaps, if enough fans start thinking in that same direction, their combined love of the game will pull us out of this loop and move us along in our hockey lives. And that would be a happy ending–and a new beginning for the Winter Classic–all wrapped up in one annual and entertaining package.
The Disgruntled Fan Report 