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There were games at iconic stadiums such as Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, Dodger Stadium and Soldier Field. There was Sidney Crosby scoring the shootout winner as snowflakes fell at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Buffalo. More than 105,000 people flocked to Michigan Stadium to watch the Red Wings play the Maple Leafs. More than 85,000 saw the Predators play the Stars at the Cotton Bowl. More than 75,000 watched the Blackhawks play the Bruins at Notre Dame Stadium.
But of the 41 outdoor games the NHL has put on since the 2003 Heritage Classic in Edmonton, the ones NHL president of content and events Steve Mayer — the mad scientist behind the games — gets asked about are the ones nobody could attend: Golden Knights–Avalanche and Flyers–Bruins at Lake Tahoe during the Covid-19 pandemic in February 2021.
…”That reinforces how special that particular game was,” Mayer said. “We stepped outside the box, took risks and we spent money. And I think we created something unforgettable.”
Unforgettable is the right word. Wrigley and Fenway are cool, for sure, but once you’ve seen a hockey game inside a baseball stadium, you’ve seen every hockey game inside every baseball stadium. Football stadiums make for massive crowds and millions of dollars at the gate, but they’re all pretty generic by nature. What the NHL created at Lake Tahoe was something entirely different, something that no other sport could pull off. The dearth of crowd noise somehow amplified the incredible vistas. Every camera angle was jaw-dropping. It was utterly spectacular and yes, unforgettable.
…The League’s priority has always been to host games in packed stadiums, to bring the game to as many people as possible. Gary Bettman loves — and so do we — the energy of the live fans. And the second we were able to bring the fans back to the buildings, we just said, OK, let’s go back to doing the outdoor games. Have we talked about other games? Of course. Do we look back at Lake Tahoe fondly? Oh, you bet. It was incredible. But that’s the reason we haven’t been back.
…Well, maybe it’s time the League starts taking risks again. The sports TV landscape is getting more crowded every year. This year’s Winter Classic is at 4 p.m. Central Time on New Year’s Eve to avoid overlapping with the NFL (which plays just about every day of the week now) and the College Football Playoff. The NHL will have some fun with the timing — every hour on the hour, they’ll celebrate a different time zone’s New Year at Wrigley — but it’s getting tougher and tougher to stand out, to break through the noise, to draw eyeballs.
…Going to an outdoor game in person is an undeniably cool (and often very cold) experience. Watching it on TV is less so.
…There just aren’t many iconic buildings left in which the League can plop down a rink. The visuals become the same over time and the games lose that special feeling. Well, at least on television.
You know how you get eyeballs? Not by rehashing venues. Not by hosting an outdoor game in yet another stadium in London or Prague or Mexico City or Australia. No, you do it with visuals that no other sport can match. The NHL did that in Lake Tahoe. It can do it again all across North America.
…Here are 10 modest proposals for future outdoor games:
7. Grant Park: Black Hawks vs. Red Wings – Yes, yes, get your jokes in. We’re talking about yet another Blackhawks outdoor game. But we’ve seen a hockey rink at Wrigley Field before. Why not move the game about six miles south in the same field that hosts Lollapalooza each summer, the same field in which Barack Obama gave his first Election Night speech and where the Blackhawks celebrated the 2013 Stanley Cup championship?
8. Santa Monica Pier: Kings vs. Ducks – The NHL has proven it can put a rink in Los Angeles, with the Kings and Ducks playing at Dodger Stadium in the 2014 Stadium Series. Now picture a rink right on the beach, built right into the sand, with the iconic Ferris wheel and the Pacific waves lapping on the shore a slap shot away.
9. Stanley Park: Canucks vs. Kraken – Yep, same Stanley that the Cup is named after, Governor General Lord Frederick Stanley. This beautiful park is almost entirely covered in trees, but there’s a clearing called Brockton Oval that could accommodate a rink and some bleachers, assuming (again) the NHL could navigate that Canadian red tape that stymied the Lake Louise idea.
10. Alcatraz: Sharks vs. Avalanche – You want ratings? Here are your ratings. And there’s a nice tie-in to NHL history here. The first NHL outdoor game ever played was an exhibition match between the Detroit Red Wings and the inmates of the Marquette Branch Prison in Michigan in 1954. Imagine the views. Imagine the special jerseys the team could come up with.
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