The Hockey News’s Sam Stockton asks three questions related to tonight’s Stadium Series game between the Red Wings and Blue Jackets (6 PM EST start on ESPN/TVA Sports/FX-CA/97.1 FM), and the second question is the most pertinent one:
For whatever advancements the NHL has made in building a rink up to their standards outdoors, the league’s open-air games nonetheless tend to promote spectacle and environment over the hockey itself. Despite the league’s best efforts, the game inevitably takes on a different tone and tenor to standard NHL fare, in large part because of lesser ice conditions. The forecast for puck drop at 6 PM presently looks just about optimal: 29 degrees and mostly cloudy, though the forecast also calls for 15 mile-per-hour winds, a not insignificant potential variable.
In his Friday comments, McLellan pointed to three key variables in taking NHL hockey outside: ice (the most obvious), boards, and general spatial awareness. The league’s short-term outdoor rinks tend to take away from the predictability of pucks bouncing off the boards, inviting potential for some chaos. Meanwhile, to the note on spatial awareness, shifting the backdrop dramatically (fans at much greater remove than they would be in an NHL arena and an unconfined space) is perhaps the biggest disruption to normality on a shift-to-shift basis, making it impossible to see the game (in the most literal sense) as identical to any other regular season game.
McLellan, predictably, emphasized that the novel environment shouldn’t disrupt Detroit’s focus, saying, “Some of the players are in awe of it a little bit…but once the puck drops, it’s hockey. It’s just played in a different environment.”
Meanwhile, the Ohio Stadium backdrop on campus at Ohio State invites a collegiate feel. In his Friday remarks, Larkin—a proud University of Michigan alum—quipped that the environment is “probably the ugliest stadium I’ve ever been in, but it’s cool to play hockey outside.” Detroit has also equipped itself with skate guards in U-M’s traditional maize and blue, as the Red Wings look to replicate the Wolverines’ recent success at the Shoe.
Continued; the key to outdoor hockey is to play simple and to play north-south hockey. The ice, boards and glass are unpredictable, perspective is off, and simpler is better.
