Chicago Wants Hockey At Soldier Field

The Chicago Blackhawks, like a lot of NHL teams and the cities that call those teams home, really, really want to host an outdoor hockey in Soldier Field next year. Why wouldn't they? The Buffalo Sabres and Pittsburgh Penguins packed 71,000 fans into Ralph Wilson Stadium on Jan. 1 and attracted a decent TV rating on a day that's long been reserved for college football bowl games. According to this story, those involved, and those who could potentially be involved, would also like to include a college hockey game on the docket and a way to allow the public to skate on the outdoor rink during the week leading up to those games. The NHL has not yet announced whether an outdoor game will be played next season.

Leafs Skate Outdoors

The Toronto Maple Leafs held an outdoor practice Monday for about 250 school kids at a refurbished rink in East Toronto. According to this story, the wind chill dipped to near minus 20, and, as you can see in this photo gallery, there was leftover snow all around the rink and neighborhood.

NHL Takes On Bowling

The NHL announced a little more than a month ago that it will stage an outdoor hockey game January 1 in Buffalo between the Sabres and the Pittsburgh Penguins. The game will be called the NHL Winter Classic, and will be played at Ralph Wilson Stadium, home of the Buffalo Bills. Good timing NHL – holding a special event such as an outdoor game on New Year’s Day when most sports fans in the U.S. are focused on college football bowl games. Poor NHL executives, they just can’t seem to get it right no matter how hard they try. (But I wish they would get it right because I love hockey.)

And one more thing: These outdoor hockey games in big stadiums, to me, just aren’t what they’re cracked up to be. The games may be great if you’re watching live at the stadium, but the weird camera placements create strange sightlines that often are obstructed by the outside of the boards. It’s a novel idea, but it’s tough to watch on the tube. NBC, TV home of the Penguins (Read that with sarcasm), will broadcast the game.

Anyway, Ralph Wilson Stadium seats more than 70,000 fans, and the game is expected to eclipse the old NHL attendance record set a few years back in 2003 by the Oilers and Montreal Canadiens at the Heritage Classic held in Edmonton's Commonwealth Stadium. That game attracted a little more than 57,000 spectators in minus 22-degree wind-chilled temeratures. Brrrrrrrrrr!