NHL's Winter Classic Hits a Home Run at Fenway Park

The NHL's now annual Winter Classic is held today at Boston's Fenway Park as the hometown Bruins host the Philadelphia Flyers. While the NHL has its challenges on a number of fronts, it can be argued that the league has the preeminent regular season event of all of the major professional sports in the country.

To grow and do big business, all professional sports rely on the ability to attract the casual, or 'crossover' fan. The NFL is the master at it as no other sport can attract those to watch even when they are not truly hardcore fans. The NBA does well when it has a major crossover star, such as Michael Jordan in years past and to some extent LeBron James today, who can make the game an event and pull in marginal fans. For its part, Major League Baseball is less star driven, but needs its premier national franchises, such as the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs and Dodgers, to be involved to create a national buzz.

The NHL, unfortunately, does not really have the ability to generate national awareness. Since Wayne Gretzky retired, it has no instantly recognizable face and even its most popular teams appeal to a relatively narrow slice of the populace. Even its playoffs and Stanley Cup finals attract a very small television audience when compared to the post seasons of the other major sports.

Perhaps by a bit of great inspiration and perhaps by bit of luck, the NHL has finally found a way though to register on the national consciousness, if for only one day a year. The Winter Classic, played in an outdoor stadium, brings those, such as myself, who are not big hockey fans to the television.

I will admit that when this was first introduced, I thought of it as nothing more than a gimmick that would be either short lived or less than successful. I initially watched out of curiosity about how the game would look in an outdoor arena. On some level, I expected to tune it out after a period or so. And while the novelty of it all is certainly part of the draw, what I also learned was that the game itself was just plain better outdoors. While it is not at all realistic to think that the NHL will start playing more games outdoors, the unpredictable conditions actually added to the fun and interest of the game. While of course, not every year will the conditions impact that game, the first Winter Classic in Buffalo featured snow. Aside from providing a beautiful setting, the game itself was impacted and forced these elite hockey players to adapt. The puck didn't necessarily do what they wanted it to do; it all seemed less pre-prorgammed, and, well, boring, than I often find the indoor game to be.

In listening today to the pre-game analysis on the Fenway Park game, Boomer Esiason on New York Sports radio station WFAN and the listeners were discussing what might happen from a weather standpoint and how it might effect the play. The whole dialogue undeniably adds to the speculation and interest for casual hockey fans who otherwise would not think of watching the Bruins and Flyers on New Years' Eve.

Is the Winter Classic enough to move the NHL from a distant fourth on the professional sports landscape? Of course it is not. The ratings for the Winter Classic will almost certainly exceed the ratings for the Stanley Cup Finals. The Winter Classic probably does not have a much positive impact on ratings and general interest later on in the season. But for one day, at least, the NHL moves to the front and legitimately challenges the college football bowl games played on New Year's Day.

Source: Dan Shaugnessy, "White Diamond Shines", bostonglobe.com