Well I guess NBC, according to what I read this morning has bought into this idea of covering a hockey game outside in Buffalos' football stadium on New Years Day against the Pittsburgh Penguins. CBC will also carry the game in Canada. They are expecting a crowd of about 75,000 in Buffalo...they said also they aren't sure what to expect weather wise, but guess it could affect the game with delays. They think alot of casual NHL fans once they see this spectacle, may be inclined to tune in....I know I will be watching this, and look forward to it....

I'll be watching from Section 135, Row 44 .

Early forecast, hi 29, low 25 with snow showers.

I was waiting for thy post Bluesy. I figured you'd be there...Well it certainly won't be 80 like it was a few weeks ago when we saw each other here in LA.

Should be interesting to watch...
Michigan State and Michigan did the same thing several years back...

Do you have a ticket for me? I'll root for the Sabres.

Ummm, and this would separate you from the other 70k or so at the Ralph how?

But, no I don't have any extras....I thinks you'd be about #25 on the waiting list of people who've asked

At a stadium you can barely see a football that is not moving from most seats. How in the world are you going to see a puck moving at 120 mph?

good glasses!

Or good binoculars.

Who cares? The game is more an event than just a basic regular season game. People are going just to go really and have good time on New Year's.

I think it would still be easier to follow the puck from a stadium upper-deck seat than it is on TV (at least on the poorer-quality broadcasts).

NBC is sending Bob Costas to Buffalo...



AccuWeather is currently calling for 1-3 inches of snow on Tuesday!

I am looking forward to it! Its on at 10:00am out here. It should be quite interesting. Been getting lots of writeup out this way too.

I love it!!!!!

41 hours until faceoff....41 hours until faceoff.....

The NHL has made a few rules adjustments just for tomorrow's game:



Imagine wind and sun being a factor in a hockey game.

The NHL Network was reporting live from the teams' practice earlier today, followed by a replay of the Montreal-Edmonton outdoors game from 2003. Since that game wasn't televised in the USA, it was fun to watch for awhile.

17 hours until faceoff. Normally I don't go to sleep early tonight since it is New Year's Eve, but tonight is like being six years old on Christmas Eve.

I am sooooooooooo fired up for this ....tick, tick, tick,.....clock going waaaaaaaaaaay too slow.

I'm jealous. I'll be by the TV.

I'll be amazed if there are no injuries.Hopefully it will stop snowing.

I wonder why they didn't put any temporary seats closer to the rink? I'm not one to watch hockey, especially regular season hockey, but color me intrigued.

Who is Doug Allen, the guy who sang Oh Canada? He was introduced as a Buffalo Sabre. He is a former player? Anyway he has a terrific voice. But I am the only one who is sooo over that Ronan Tynan guy?

This is AWESOME!!! Now if they can just keep the ice togther... So far loving every second of this...so far the Pens have just a little bit more jump in their skates, but there are 2 more periods to go..Miller has the right idea with his head warmer. I want to hear some crowd noise for a Sabres score please.

edited

Okay that was fun! I'm so glad I'm moving to a city with an NHL team. I'm definitely going to be visiting the Staples Center a lot this year.

Loved it. I look forward to Blues comments. A damn shame that someone had to lose IMO, but the Sabres get 1 point. The city of Buffalo should be proud of how well they pulled of this thing IMO. Well done I say!

I think there's too much space to put that many seats on the ground. They could put a row or two right up against the glass, but after that it'd be tougher to see the game unless the seats are rising as with bleachers. And if you put up temporary bleachers there, you're blocking the view of the people in the first rows of the permanent seats.



Never heard of him. I just assumed he was the regular anthem singer for the Sabres.

As for Tynan, anthem singers who feel compelled to give speeches should be smacked. Shut the f**k up and sing.

The show overall was terrific, the game was pretty good considering the conditions. The stoppages to clean and/or fix the ice were kind of annoying, though. I know it was necessarry but still...

The atmosphere in the stadium must have been amazing. The Flyers have inquired about having an outdoor game next year, but at Penn State. I don't know if that will happen but I'd love to be there if it does. I'd need a driver, though...volunteers? I know Beaver Stadium holds over 100,000 but I'd rather they just have it at the Linc.

The game was considerably longer than most NHL games, what with all the Zamboni breaks and fixing-holes-in-the-ice breaks. Consequently, I missed the OT/SO as I had to be at work at 3 pm MST (yes, some of us work on holidays ) At least the temperature in Buffalo was around zero, a lot balmier than it was in Edmonton back in '03 (which former Oiler goalie Ty Conklin played in too). Loved those vintage baby-blue Penguins' uniforms from the 1970s...can't say I remember them, even though I'm old enough!

There was a pregame show on CBC in which they played what appeared to be a 'civic pride' jingle-type video for the city of Buffalo. In this one, they showed lots of footage of old Bills' and Sabres' games, but no scenes of Niagara Falls nor of anyone eating Buffalo's famous chicken wings! However, what really surprised me was a line from the song, repeated several times, which sounded a lot like 'f**king proud, f**king proud'. Did anyone else hear that too, or do I need to get my ears checked? Maybe Blueraider can fill me in; I can't imagine the city of Buffalo would promote itself with lyrics like that!

I switched over to NBC for the first intermission, not wanting to watch to the usual tiresome schtick of Cherry and MacLean which I can hear any Saturday on HNIC. It was a nice change, actually. I always associated Bob Costas with baseball, not hockey, so I was surprised to learn that early in his career he was an announcer for hockey games.

Despite the delays, it looked like a fun place to be, and I'm sure the 80,000 fans enjoyed themselves. It will be interesting to see what the TV ratings were for the game, especially in the US considering it was going up against all those college football bowl games which Americans love. Another date might have been better, such as the weekend after the Super Bowl in February. As for next year, the Flyers might very well host an outdoor game Joe, although I've heard that Montreal is the front runner (somehow I don't think Phoenix or Tampa or Dallas have much chance!)

As far as ratings... if my house is any indication, NBC probably didn't too bad. Dad had Tennessee/Wisconsin on and was just flipping every now and then to the Classic... but once that was over, he put on the Classic and only checked Florida/Michigan during commercials... and he LOVES college football. That was the power of this spectacle. Simply put, it was amazing.

Big post game writeup in my local sports section this morning. From all angles, everyone seemed pleased with the event, and according to Bettman, and what others have already posted, there is widespread interest from other teams to do this on an annual basis. COOL!

It was such a spectacle that Jim Buzinski wrote a hockey blog entry.

My view from section 135....first with clarifications to the gang....

@ GTF....I'm assuming that there were no temp seats close to the rink because that would create more obstructed view seats than already existed. I believe that the first six rows in the lower bowl were classified and sold as "obstructed view seats" because it wasn't possible to see the ice surface from them. Many people who had a chance to check out the stadium ahead of time said that the best seats in this configuration may have been the first few rows in the upper deck(far cheaper price than good lower level seats)

Doug Allen is the Sabres anthem singer at most home games doing both the Canadian and US anthems. Occasional they drag Ronan Tynan up from NYC to sing the dead fat woman's song and quite frankly I'm pretty sick of it. Don't know if they showed the scoreboard on TV during his singing and showing all the soldiers and the like. The song is constantly used as war propanganda in my eyes, I've had enough of it.

@ JIP....exactly...STFU Ronan. Just go away.

@ Marc....The name of the song in question is "Talking Proud" it is a local song that promotes civic pride in the area and was really big during the early 80's and was basically the theme song for the Bills when they made their run to 1980 AFC East title.

Now that I have DirecTV, I miss the CBC...not much but the hockey coverage is when I miss it most. I'd like to see that intro again. Is it on the CBC website somewhere???

Now for my li'l post entry about the day @ the Ralph.....

A really awesome, crazy f'd up atmosphere....without question. Got there about three hours in advance, and really things from the outside didn't feel much different than your basic late season Bills game. Replace fans in football attire and replace with hockey attire and you get the idea.

But once entering the seating bowl from the alcoves, that's when the hammer hit me. WOW! I mean, anyone around these parts was checking the updates from the stadium as much as possible about the progress made converting the field for hockey. But still...to see it for real...it.was.so.cool. Fortunately for me, I had great seats about ten rows beneath press level. I could turn around and see Bill Clement, Rick Jennaret doing their thing.

Heck, even had a pseudo celeb sighting as ESPN's Steve Levy was there as a joe fan three or four rows in front of me.

The weather was perfect for this time of year, temps around freezing and while yes it did snow the accumulation was minimal judging from when I got back to the car.

When faceoff hit, I could barely look at the ice(no not the conditions) just gazing around the stadium, seeing it packed, and realizing it was a hockey game I was at. Simply awe striking. I even noticed that the flags of the 32 NFL clubs that ring the top of the upper deck on each side were replaced by flags bearing the logos of the 30 NHL clubs plus one for each conference

Once I started to pay closer attention, it was immediately easy to tell what an impact the snow was going to have on gameplay. Just the first couple of passes that rumbled down the ice. The breakaways, the sweet threading the needle passes that help make the game great just weren't gonna happen with the snow.

Quite frankly though, this was secondary to most in the stands. This was definitely a "just happy to be here" crowd, but a very enthusiastic one at that....we stood for the virtually all of the game outside of the second period, and finally a chance to erupt when Campbell scored his goal.

And unlike Bills games late in the season, no one left early(Well a few idiots took off prior to the shootout). The joint was jumping and buzzing right up until Crosby lit the lamp in the shootout .

Some other thoughts.....

I understood switching sides in the middle of the third, but in OT???? c'mon, its just a couple of minutes! Especially when the wind was mostly nonexistent throughout except in spots during the third period(From my prespective).

And why didn't they use the zamboni prior to shootout, like is usually done??

I hope I get the chance to see one again. Buffalo preferred, but somewhere else works for moi as well!

Just a great....great time.

Great writeup Blue, as I expected. The crowd was mentioned CONSTANTLY by the NBC announcers whom I happen to really like, both of em...and they kept mentioning how much of the crowd was standing at all occasions as well.....your lucky you got to see this bud, but it was almost as much fun watching it at home in high def. The next best thing to being there......

Overnight ratings: 2.6 rating/5 share -- the biggest numbers for a regular-season game since a six-game regional telecast on Fox did 3.0/7 on Feb. 3, 1996.

I sat front row at the Heritage Classic in Edmonton back in 2003 and you couldn't see the ice surface at all... which was fine by me to be honest... we just partied in the stands and watched on the big screen and just soaked up the atmosphere!

Glad to see this worked so well in Buffalo and in terms of ratings with NBC. I just hope that the NHL doesn't do it every year... that, in my opinion, would take away the novelty and some of the magic of an outdoor game. Have it once every two or three years and you're guarenteed success!

Yep JIP, I read that about it being a ratings hit. Pretty darn cool I think. I get so tired of the negativity towards hockey by so many so called media sports pundits. Do it right, like they did in Buffalo, and hockey fans will watch it.

Caught Barry Smelrose on ESPN this morning talking about the outside game and all. Like most here he was really impressed, and said the NHL should do this yearly, if possible, given the ratings. I agree. He mentioned in his opinion another venue to consider, Chicagos' Soldier Field. BRRRRRRRRR>>>>>>

Here's a link to the CBC intro that Marc referred to. It featured Buffalo and some great memories of Sabres/Bills past. For those of you (like me) who were forced to watch the game on the Crosby Broadcasting Company this served as a refreshing counter.

Thanks for the clarification, Blueraider! I'm sure the word really is supposed to be 'talking' but even when I played back the video, it STILL sounded like the other word to me, especially near the end. Must be that peculiar American accent us Canadians have trouble understanding sometimes. While on the subject of 'translation', can someone please tell this confused Canuck what '2.6 rating/5 share' means (see Joe's post); we use metric up here.

From the AP article:

Overnight ratings measure the 55 largest TV markets in the United States, and each ratings point represents about 735,000 households. The rating is the percentage watching a telecast among homes with televisions, and the share is the percentage tuned into a broadcast among those households with televisions on at the time.

The NHL Network will rebroadcast the Winter Classic at 4:30 p.m. Saturday and at 2:30 p.m. Sunday. It's an Instant Classic!

Before Chicago can host an outdoor game, maybe they should sell out some of their games first...

Their attendance is up from last year. The team has young promising players. I can see a game in Chicago at some point.

League officials will have fun trying to decide where to hold the next outdoor game.

Hockey in Fenway Park would be awesome, and they'd only have to sell 35,000 tickets.

It was on Universal HD on ...Wednesday? I watched it completely again... and it was just as cool the second time as it was the first time.

That being said, I think I agree with those who feel it should NOT be an annual thing. While it could definitely turn into a Daytona 500 type of thing (the big event of the year though it's not the championship event i.e. the Super Bowl), I just think it would lose its luster if we had an outdoors game every year. Has the league announced for sure whether or not they'll be doing the Olympics after Vancouver? If they haven't announced that decision, and they decide to continue to partake in the Olympics, then I think every four years would be a great idea (since there would be no All-Star Game in those years). Just a thought.

As far as I know there's been no decision on future Olympics.

I prefer every year, or every other year, perhaps. If you do it every year, at least it would get to all the places that want to host it within a reasonable period of time. With one every 4 years it would take a long time to have one hosted by all of the teams that would want to do it/that should get to do it...and how would you decide who gets to do it? Do you do it in markets that need the publicity boost? Do you do it in longtime loyal hockey markets? Do you do it in cold-weather places only? The technology exists to put an ice rink in a stadium down south, say, Atlanta or Tampa Bay, but would there be as much interest in that since the weather won't be that cold (the past couple of days notwithstanding)?

Doing it every year, there's a risk of it becoming old hat, but there's also a chance of it becoming a popular tradition.

You have to keep it in cities with traditionally cold weather... the thought of playing hockey outdoors in Miami just doesn't sound right at all.

Every second year i'd be happy with... every year I'm not a fan of.

Yeah, don't tell me it's not cold down here in Tampa Bay! We've been freezing our asses off...

It definitely could be a popular tradition, I can't argue that. But think about Monday... the snow, the cold, it all added to the magic. A game in the brigt sunlight would be interesting but not as captivating - at least not to the common sports fan. So, I dunno. Fortunately, I don't have to make that decision...

If the goal is to increase viewership, they should make like Monday Night Football and do it every week.

The Canadian figures for the outdoor game can be found here , and I must say they are a lot more straightforward and comprehensible than this '2.6 rating/5 share' (thanks for trying to explain it anyway, Joe!) If one rating point is equal to 735,000 households, why don't the American media just say that 1,911,000 U.S. households (735,000 x 2.6) were tuned into the game?? The ratings for the 2003 game in Edmonton were higher, not surprisingly since two Canadian teams were playing.

Although initially I thought an annual 'winter classic' was a good idea, after reading some of the other posts, I now agree that once every two or three years would sustain more interest. The novelty would soon wear off if it were done every year.

Maybe Mexico City should host the next outdoor classic. It would be a great promotional idea for the NHL...if things don't work out in Kansas City or Las Vegas, I'm sure Gary Bettman would LOVE to see an expansion franchise in Mexico City, instead of, say, Hamilton or Quebec City or Winnipeg!

It would be impossible to set up in so many places every week. They started the prep work in Buffalo right after the Bills finished their final home game of the season 9 days earlier.

And the novelty would really wear off if they did it more than once a year.

How about a home-and-home with the Rangers and the Bruins at Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park? The Red Wings-Blackhawks at Wrigley Field and Comerica Park? Using baseball stadiums instead of football stadiums would eliminte the problem of conflicting with football games. And they could put extra seating in the form of temporary bleachers in the outfield (provided I'm not underestimating the dimesions/size of a hockey rink).

If you play an outdoor game every year, it becomes just that... an outdoor game.

If you play an outdoor game once every two to four years, it becomes more than just a game, it's an event.

Alas, the NHL will look at this through their greedy little eyes and try to capitalize on this venture by staging one every year... and sure it'll work with ratings for the next one and maybe the one after that... but I can guarentee the novelty will wear off and the ratings will decline for that game.

But then again, what do I know?

Should they not hold the college bowl games annually, then?

Ratings do fluctuate. Sure, they'd go down at some point. But they can also go back up, given proper circumstances -- marketing, matchups, etc.

And as I said, you don't want to have a team that wants to hold one of these games not get the opportunity to do so until after many of their current fans are dead.