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| Photo: Chris Sweda, Chicago Tribune |
My 8-year-old son is slowly becoming a sports fan.
We live in a rural part of the country where there are no absolute local sports
teams to root for, so he’s picked the Penguins – he loves penguins – and Bears
as his respective NHL and NFL teams.
So, it sort of blew his mind Saturday night when I
flicked the TV over to the Penguins v. Blackhawks Stadium Series game being
played at Soldier Field.
“Wait, the Penguins are playing hockey in the
Bears’ football stadium?” my son asked, trying to grasp that whole "what-tha…" concept.
“Yep,” I replied.
“Ok,” he said. “Change it back to Sponge Bob.”
Anyway, the Soldier Field game turned out to be another
one of those NHL outdoor weather classics, at least in terms of the stunning
visuals as we watched snow flow down to the ice. Not many sporting events can
look better.
Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville, whose team won
5-1, said it was “probably the
greatest setting you could want. With how hard it was snowing it was like,
'Wow, these are amazing conditions.’ I think everybody went back to when they
were kids."
We always hear the line – the one about going back
to your childhood – from coaches and players when they speak about playing in
the outdoor games.
As for the playing conditions, Blackhawks forward
Patrick Sharp said the ice was “very
good, but that first period it was tough to see and handle the puck. It really
felt like a real outdoor game. There were no real systems or structure. We were
just kind of hoisting the puck, slapping it around and having fun."
