Posted on 12/28/2007 5:14:01 AM PST by airborne
Think you’re busy during the holiday season?
Well, it probably isn’t as hectic as what Don Renzulli and the rest of the people in charge of arranging the Amp Energy NHL Winter Classic between the Penguins and Sabres outdoors at Buffalo’s Ralph Wilson Stadium on New Year’s Day are experiencing.
They’ve been going non-stop since Dec. 23 – and months before it, actually, to stage the NHL’s first regular-season game played outdoors in the United States.
“We probably got involved with this in June. It was talked long before that,” said Renzulli, the NHL’s Senior Vice President of Events and Entertainment. “We did some site studies and we actually went up and built the mock rink in the stadium – instead of looking at pieces of paper with lines drawn on them – we wanted to see really what the fans would see and we did that in August. We came back in early September and had our press conference to launch it. Going forward, as this thing can grow, it’s going to take a lot more time and pre-planning as, hopefully, it is successful and we can move it around to other venues in the country.”
The game will be the NHL’s second regular-season contest to be held outdoors. The Heritage Classic, played on Nov. 22, 2003, in Edmonton, Alberta.
“That was well before my time, but I think what we came out of it with the idea that it was something special,” Renzulli said. “It turns an 18,000-seat arena into a 70,000-seat arena. It really gives the local fans a chance to go out and experience something different.
“It takes everybody back to when they learned this game and the roots of hockey. It wasn’t in a rink; it was out on a pond some place. So, I think it just gets everybody back to the way it was meant to be.”
The game will be telecast nationally at 1 p.m. on NBC in the United States and CBC in Canada.
“It’s awesome for the league. I think we’re going to expose this game to a number of other people who normally don’t watch. Having a New Year’s Day time slot on NBC and CBC is awesome. It gives us the ability to go head-to-head with major bowl games, something we haven’t had before. I think we’ll be exposed to a lot of new fans going forward,” Renzulli said. “And, we give the opportunity to 70,000 fans to come at one time to watch. As loud as HSBC Arena can get when the Sabres score, it’s going to be three times as loud this time around. I think the buzz that is going on right now in Buffalo is tremendous. The fan support up there is tremendous. Tickets sold out in about 40 minutes. The demand is there and the press the game has been getting has been awesome.”
Don Renzulli While the focus will be on the Penguins and Sabres, there will be a variety of other entertainment.
“We’ll have a flyover, pending on weather conditions. We’ll have a secondary ice rink on the field where you’ll see little kids playing,” Renzulli said. “We’ll try to mix up between pregame and intermission with young kids skating and with music and a lot of just fun entertainment.”
Since Ralph Wilson Stadium, home of the NFL’s Buffalo Bills, is designed for football, many obstacles must be overcome to turn it into the world’s-largest ice hockey venue.
“Just trying to understand all the different elements you have pre-built in an arena and trying to fit those into a football stadium,” Renzulli said. “I think when you look at it from a broadcast standpoint, you’re talking about camera positions and sightlines. Also, you have the locker rooms, the infrastructure that you need for the refrigeration system – all those types of pieces aren’t pre-built. You have to try to layer those into a stadium that’s not typically set up for something like this.”
Renzulli and his army of workers began the site preparation immediately after the Bills played the New York Giants on Sunday.
“We tarped field and removed the goalposts and spent the next few hours just doing a site survey, getting our points that we start to level the field with since there’s a nine-inch crown in that football field,” Renzulli said. “We started with that and slowly started leveling that field off with about 3,000 sheets of plywood and Styrofoam. Then, we started the rink and the ice process.”
Staging an event of this magnitude requires a lot of assistance. According to Renzulli, all parties involved in the NHL Winter Classic have been more than helpful.
“There are quite a few. No.1, the Buffalo Bills has been instrumental in guiding us through this. The Sabres staff, being there locally, has been a great help in trying to help us understand how we need to prepare a football stadium for hockey. The ice rink people we’re bringing in, including Dan Craig, the “ice guru” has made a number of trips up there,” he said. “The Penguins staff – we’ve gone to Pittsburgh to talk to them. There has been a boatload of people involved in the process of trying to download all the information from them. We’ve talked to people from Edmonton. We have people coming in from California and Minnesota and various parts of the country.”
Of course, the weather – good and bad – remains a primary concern for all involved in the game, given the unpredictable outdoor conditions in the Buffalo area at this time of year.
“I think there are a whole host of those issues that we’ve spent countless hours here discussing internally. All I can say is that we have many contingencies put in place,” Renzulli said. “We have people waiting in the wings if we get snow, obviously, that’s a major concern. We’re watching the weather on a daily basis and as we go through, if it is going to impact us, then we have plans already set in place and ready to go to make this game happen regardless.”
If the NHL Winter Classic fares well, the event could happen again in the future.
“We’re going to make that evaluation after Jan. 1. We’ll see how it all works out,” Renzulli said. “There’s been a lot of writing in the press already about other teams that are looking to host a game and we’ll come out of this, evaluate it – if it’s successful, we’ll make changes to make it better and then figure out where we go next.”
Tickets (70,000) sold out in about 40 minutes!
And the weather on the 1st will be perfect for hockey.
Tue
Jan 1 Snow Shower
32°/23°
Sounds like great fun. I hate that I’m working all day.
I can’t wait! Hopefully it’s over by 4 my time so I can watch U of I stomp USC in the Rose Bowl, too. :P
Last week the NHL sent me a survey asking all about this and other possible match-ups for outdoor games. I voted for Chicago v. Detroit (I think it was either Detroit or St. Louis) who probably won’t win, but just the thought of hockey is Soldier Field is so cool.
There’s an audio link at the source. According to the guy who set up the ice, there’s going to also be a smaller rink for kids to skate on, and a bunch of other entertainment.
Hopefully it will be a yearly event. Selling 70,000 tickets in 40 minutes is motivation enough for other teams to do the same.
Maybe Pittsburgh and Philly can play at Heinz Field!
I run the local hockey league in indiana. I can attst there is nothing like playing hockey outside, and its even better at night. I know thye have football games outside, why not hockey. I always wondered why the Nl didnt do more of this?
Right after they put down an artifical turf surface.
Why? They’ll be playing on ice! The turf ought to freeze up real nice! ;^)
Someone would take a hard check in the corner and the whole rink would slide 5 feet to the left. LOL
Is that blood or ketchup on your face?
How great would it be to have one of these games every year between the Pens and Flyers, alternating back and forth between Pilly and Pittsurgh?
Yeah! Something fun to watch on New Year’s day (I’m not a big college football fan).
I think a future Boston-Montreal game would be great fun, though the Bruins aways seem to have trouble against the Habs.
NHL.com has vids up behind the scenes...very cool...i havent been on the ice in 3 months...i need to get back to skating
if its blood buy em a beer make him feel better eh?
“Last week the NHL sent me a survey asking all about this and other possible match-ups for outdoor games. I voted for Chicago v. Detroit (I think it was either Detroit or St. Louis) who probably won’t win, but just the thought of hockey is Soldier Field is so cool.”
I would have the orginal 6 play. Then again, they talk about outside rinks like that’s how it used to be. Fact is, there were indoor rinks since the 1870’s.
Nowadays, the NHL is prissy about the fighting but I think it is an integral and unavoidable part of the game of ice hockey. It blows off steam and keeps the rest of the game under control. I remember being at Boston Garden when Don Cherry would send the goons out on the ice when the stars were getting whacked around a bit too much. The crowd would literally rise to their feet and roar. We miss that in the game today.
As for helmets, you had to be there in the days when the likes of Bobby Orr, Bobby Clarke or even old-timers like Gordie Howe would glide up and down the ice without helmets. They were immediately recognizable and you didn't have to keep looking at the scorecard to put jersey numbers with names. With these godawful helmets, everybody looks the exact same on the ice. As for safety concerns, players should still be able to wear them but most NHL players would take them off in a heartbeat if they had the option. I'm not even convinced that the helmets add a lot of safety to the game. Back in the old days without helmets, serious injuries were few and far between and seems no different than what you get today with the helmets.
But the biggest problem with NHL hockey today is that the game is slowed way down with those stupid offsides rules. Everytime you are about to see a fantastic play brewing (like a two-on-one), the play gets whistled offsides. The NHL really needs to open up the game and maybe consider removing the red lines altogether. Also, the rinks need to get bigger. Players are bigger and faster than they used to be and need bigger ice surface to really open up and get around the neutral zone "clutching-and-grabbing" that dominates the game today.
Nowadays, the game of NHL hockey is a snoozefest. I remember one game in 1974 between the Bruins and the California Golden Seals. The Bruins fell behind quickly 4-0 but ended up winning the game 7-6. There were tons of fantastic rushes up and down the ice and the fans were on their feet nearly the entire game. You just don't see wide open games like that anymore. One a team gets a two goal lead, the game is essentially over as the team that is ahead simply spends the rest of the game clutching-and-grabbing in the neutral zone and dumping the puck in the other end.
I coach a Bantam ice hockey team down in Texas. The parents of my players got me for the holidays “Hockey, a People’s History” by Michael McKinley.
This in my opinion is the best book out there if you want to learn about hockey from its inception to the current day.
I highly recommend it to all.
Sounds interesting. I’ll check it out!
You haven’t watched a game in a while, huh?
I was watching the Bruins down 4-0 to the Pens midway through the 2nd period, then they fought back to tie it (including a fight), only to lose in the shootout.
It was great hockey. And it happens all the time now.
What they need is a long term TV contract, regardless of how much profit is involved.
Exposure is what they need. And selling 70,000 tickets in 40 minutes for a game televised on NBC is a step in the right direction, IMHO.
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