Bill Clement

In case you haven't heard, the Penguins and Sabres have a play date in Buffalo on New Year's Day -- outdoors.

Instead of getting together inside their usual playpen, the HSBC Arena, the two teams will give it a go outside at Ralph Wilson Stadium before 73,000 fans in a game that will be televised throughout the United States and Canada.

The NHL is calling the matchup the Winter Classic, and it could turn out to be an incredible positive for the league. Regardless of the venue, what can be expected from the Penguins and Sabres is a real fast-paced, up-and-down style of play. These clubs have few plodders. Most who skate for Pittsburgh and Buffalo can accelerate at a fearsome pace. Can you imagine how electrifying it will be on Jan. 1 to watch Sidney Crosby launch himself on an attack with a brisk wind at his back?

Showcasing the sport
The Winter Classic transcends a mere hockey game. And it's more than an event. The All-Star game is an event. The Winter Classic is a hockey game that will be presented in spectacle form. It's the Woodstock of NHL hockey. It's an anomaly, an oddity, and because of that it could draw a connection to the casual hockey fan. Viewers flipping through the channels on New Year's Day should find curious a hockey game where they are able to see the breath of every player on the ice. More than a few remotes are likely to stop clicking long enough to get at least a look-in at the unusual.

The greatest gain for the NHL will be increased awareness of the sport. The game will have a glow to it. Some viewers will just drop in for a few minutes while others may stay a good deal longer. Whatever the case, the NHL gains visibility and a chance to take a step forward in the minds of sports fans who might not otherwise think of hockey as anything special. And among the casual fans who will watch, what they see may lead them to view more NHL games in the future, even though they'll be indoors. The Winter Classic puts the NHL in a position to win over more interest from the sports-viewing public.

This is not the first time the NHL has dropped the puck on a frozen pond without a roof overhead, but it will be the league's first outdoor regular-season game in the United States. The Winter Classic will break the NHL's single-game attendance record set Nov. 22, 2003, when Edmonton drew 57,167 for the Heritage Classic, an outdoor game against Montreal. But that game was not televised in the United States. The Winter Classic will be as NBC Sports is making it a major staple of its holiday viewing schedule. The network will use more than 20 cameras, and an airplane that will be taking aerial shots while flying over the stadium. Time to check out instant replays from the sky.

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The NHL has about a week's time to transform Ralph Wilson Stadium from an NFL venue into a hockey rink. Within hours after the Bills finish hosting the Giants on Dec. 23 work crews start the preparations for the Winter Classic. Who will point the workers in the right direction as far as what needs to be done and how to do it? That person will be Dan Craig, the NHL's facilities operations manager, who is known as an ice guru, and who was responsible for supervising the project of making ready an outdoor rink for the 2003 Heritage Classic in Edmonton.

Weathering the weather
When any league pushes the envelope and attempts to do something big, bold, daring, and out of the ordinary there are potential pitfalls. With the Winter Classic the obvious one is the weather, which if severe enough, could force the postponment of the game. There are contingency plans for weather issues, with the NHL likely to consider a one-day postponement for severe weather if the need arises. But cloudy skies and some light snow or snow flurries would make for good conditions and terrific images for television.

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The NHL is bringing the sport back to its roots -- outdoors where so many of its players first learned the game. In doing so it knows it's rolling the dice with the weather. The average temperature in Buffalo around New Year's Day is 25 degrees and that's exactly what the league is hoping for. Cold no doubt, but cold is relative when it comes to playing hockey outdoors. The temperature was just above 0 degrees Fahrenheit the day of the Heritage Classic in Edmonton.

Buffalo is prone to lake-effect winter storms that can dump several inches of snow on the area. That can be dealt with, but if there is a foot of lake-effect snow, that's bad news for the NHL. So would be temperatures of between 45 and 50, since the ice might not hold up. Also, if it's too cold, the ice will crack and chip. If it's a real sunny day the glare off the ice will create difficulty in seeing the puck. Needless to say, the hockey gods have been bombarded with weather-related prayers from the NHL, NBC, and the 73,000 fans who have tickets to the game.

The Penguins and Sabres will each have an hour-long practice at Ralph Wilson Stadium on the day before the game. The league wants them to see the lighting conditions, get used to the ice, the boards, and the position of the clock and scoreboard. But the weather on Dec. 31 may be starkly different from the weather on Jan. 1. If on game day the winds are strong they'll pose a fatigue factor as they will make skating more difficult, slowing down the speed of all players, those attacking as well as those defending. If it's frigid, the goalies might find their hands feeling like stone. The greatest enemy of a goalie is letting his mind wander and freezing hands and feet can certainly cause a loss of focus. And if players try to wear gloves inside their hockey gloves they are not going to have much feel on their stick.

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