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2010 Winter Classic

James Taylor will perform the National Anthem at the 2010 NHL Winter Classic.

Steve and I both look forward to the new tradition of watching the Winter Classic. We will settle in with our New Years food and watch the game. That first year was fabulous! The Penguins, the snow, the sheer joy with which they all played. It was great! Last year, the game wasn't as good (to me) and I got sort of bored with it by the end.

The Winter Classic is, of course, played outdoors. There is something about this particular game that captures what I think must strike right to the young hearts of all hockey players. There is something magic about skating outside in the cold and the wind, the snow, if you're lucky, playing a game that they so clearly love.

This year we have Philadelphia v. Boston, and Fenway is ready:



Here is my post from last year about the Winter Classic; in it I wrote about Jack Falla and his book Home Ice, about backyard skating rinks. The book is an ode to hockey and is beautifully written. Falla describes his initial trial and error attempts at building his own backyard rink. When he finally gets it right, he says:

Late that night I still had my skates on and was scraping the ice while listening to an oldies radio station...when my friend Doc showed up, skates and hockey stick in hand and a six-pack of Molson beer under his arm. We stuck the beers in a snowbank and wedged the bottle opener into a gap in the boards. 'I knew you'd build a rink and forget to attach a beer opener to the boards,' said Doc.

Falla's backyard rink attracted lots of friends and the friends of his children. They eventually installed lights and a stereo system and even started their own tournament. What fun that must have been! Falla's favorite memory seems to be of those late night solitary skates or those with his wife, after everyone else has gone.

The Winter Classic always makes me pull Falla's book off the shelf and re-read parts of it. One of my favorite vignettes is when, after an interview, Wayne Gretzky asks Falla "You shoot left?" and he gives Falla one of his old hockey sticks. While some people would have put it on eBay, Falla says

I appreciated the stick, but not as much as the question that suggested exactly what Gretzky intended I do with that stick. The same thing he'd do. Use it.

Eventually the worn out and battered stick served an end-of-life purpose as a tomato plant stake.

I've already bought a corned beef brisket and last night Steve bought the biggest cabbage in the whole wide world for us to eat New Years Day. I'll cook some black eyed peas and cornbread to go along with it all. Traditional New Years food.

I don't want to wish my vacation away, but I can't wait!

Jack Falla and the Backyard Rink

The NHL website has lots of great stuff pertaining to today's Winter Classic but I think my favorite is the article by Brian Falla discussing his father Jack and how they both loved watching the 2008 Classic one year ago today.

(In the photo, Brian Falla is on the left; he scored the winning goal in their "Molson Cup" backyard tournament. The "cup" was an empty beer keg with a small hockey trophy glued on top.)

Jack Falla wrote the classic, Home Ice, about backyard rinks and the joys of skating outdoors on frozen ponds or backyard rinks. It brings a totally different aspect to the game.

Since I don't, and never will, play hockey, a lot of this was beyond me, but what I loved about the book was Falla's way with words. I also loved the story he told; the book is a collection of essays and pieces he'd written through the years, some with his time at Sports Illustrated. It started out with his trials and errors in constructing his own backyard rink -- a process he perfected through the years. He called his rink The Bacon Street Omni, and the NHL article by Brian has some great pictures of the rink. He also visited other backyard rinks around the country to learn from others. He tells one terrific story of meeting Wayne Gretzky's father, then skating with Wayne himself. Gretzky gave him one of his sticks which Falla added to the stick collection at his backyard rink. He said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that Wayne would want the stick to be used, not sold on eBay or kept as a relic. Hockey sticks, he said, are meant to be used. He said that eventually the stick ended up as a stake for some tomato plant.

Brian Falla has his dad's way with words. Jack Falla died this past September, but I'm sure he will be watching the game today with the pure joy that outdoor skating brings!

(Photo credit: Jack Falla)

Baseball Field to Hockey Rink

Here is a cool time-lapse video of the transformation of Wrigley Field into a hockey rink. Game time is noon, Central Time, and they are expecting snow! And we will be pulling for the Blackhawks.

2009 NHL Winter Classic

I can't WAIT for the 2009 NHL Hockey Classic! I'm not as true-blue a hockey fan as Steve is; I like it, but Steve is fanatic about it. But the 2008 Classic about made a believer of me.

The game was on New Year's Day in Buffalo, NY; it set an NHL attendance record with over 71,000 in attendance. Can you imagine? 71,000 people wanting to sit outside in a snow storm to watch hockey? It was great! The commentators even quoted rhapsodic statements from Jack Falla's classic book, Home Ice about the joys of skating outdoors on frozen ponds, which I promptly ordered off Amazon.

The rink was a one-time deal in Ralph Wilson stadium and was constructed just for the game. The teams in the 2008 game were the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Buffalo Sabres and my Penguins won in overtime on a Crosby goal. What thrilled me most was seeing the unrestrained glee and total abandon that instilled Crosby as he played. Those guys were all like big kids playing on a frozen pond that day. The snow was falling freely, the fans were enthusiastic and the game was great.

This year will be the Blackhawks and the hated Red Wings (Steve hates the Red Wings) and will be at Wrigley Field. It'll be great and I can't WAIT!