reebok hockey: N.H.L. Ties Its Brand to Great Outdoors

The N.H.L. gleaned two simple lessons from the rousing debut of its Winter Classic game last New Year’s Day. No. 1: Do it again. No. 2: Make it much, much bigger.

What began in the snow and sleet at Ralph Wilson Stadium outside Buffalo continues Thursday at Wrigley Field in Chicago with two of the league’s Original Six teams. The Chicago Blackhawks, a renascent team in second place in the Central Division, and the defending champion Detroit Red Wings, who are in first place in the Central, play at 1 p.m. on NBC (and CBC and RDS in Canada).

This time, it will be in a much smaller stadium, but in a far larger market, with more corporate involvement (like the title sponsor Bridgestone, and Honda), and more expensive tickets — seats that cost $10 to $203 last time are now up to $25 to $335.

A few seats are being offered on StubHub for as much as $10,000 each.

Reebok has opened two stores near Wrigley to sell merchandise through Jan. 5. Also, Chicago sports legends — among them the Blackhawks’ Bobby Hull and the Cubs’ Ferguson Jenkins — will be honored, and the Red Wings great Ted Lindsay is expected to drop the ceremonial first puck. And fighter jets will fly over during the national anthems.

This isn’t quaint anymore. The league believes the Classic — a regular-season game played outdoors every New Year’s Day — will be a long-term annual event that separates hockey from other sports; it projects the game as a midseason ritual for its fans to root nationally, not for their local teams. Already, there is demand for future games in Philadelphia, Detroit, Toronto, Montreal and Boston.

Before the league got its rental at Wrigley, which is in the midst of being sold along with the Cubs, unoccupied old Yankee Stadium was seriously considered to be the site.

“This is part of our new business model and gives people a sense of what we can do,” said John Collins, the league’s chief operating officer. “We introduced our Broadband player, we reintroduced NHL.com. We have 53 million fans who love the game, 22 million in the arenas and a $2.6 billion business. But it doesn’t feel as big as it should.”

What happened last season in Orchard Park, N.Y., before 71,217 fans in a football stadium on a hastily built rink, provided the Classic with legitimacy and the league with good will. The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Sabres, 2-1, on Sidney Crosby’s shootout goal. The ice was iffy (several breaks were needed to patch holes), but the snow created a magnificent special effect.

An average of 3.75 million viewers watched on NBC, more than four times what the league’s All-Star Game drew and close to the 4.5 million average for the Stanley Cup finals. The number of viewers who tuned in and were stunned to see regular-season hockey in the snow was not a demographic measured by Nielsen Media.

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But the snow did not hurt in a New Year’s Day afternoon time period that it shared with four college bowls and will share Thursday with three (the Outback, the Capital One and the Gator). The Weather.com forecast in Chicago calls for temperatures in the 30s and with a 30 percent chance of afternoon snow showers. And if it doesn’t snow? “We’re not going to have snowmakers at the game,” Collins said. “There won’t be any snow, unless it’s heaven-made.” He added that the cost of staging the game, including a custom-built refrigeration system, “is in the millions, but it’s a moneymaking venture.”

The appeal of an outdoor game is obvious: it reminds hockey lovers, at least those who learned or appreciate the sport in very cold climes, of playing on frozen ponds and lakes. “Pond Hockey: The Game as Nature Intended,” a newly released documentary (now on DVD) that was built around the 2005 United States Pond Hockey Championships in Minneapolis, celebrates skating in the elements.

“It’s a pretty indescribable experience,” said Tommy Haines, who directed and co-produced the film, and grew up playing on outdoor ice in Mountain Iron, Minn. “You’re out there in nature, with your buddies, with no parents around, and you’re skating faster than you can run, the breeze is in your face, and you pull a few more moves than you could inside.”

Haines said he hoped the Classic eventually rotated into his home state.

“I’m pretty stoked about this,” he said. “I hope they do one outdoor game a week.”

That frequency would probably wear out the novelty, but you wonder if the league can make the game special enough every year to maintain fan interest. It could become the annual event that the league hopes for, or it could be humdrum. Will new elements have to be added to keep it fresh, or will anticipation sell it each year? Will only cold-weather teams be admitted, or will Dallas or Tampa Bay want to play at Fenway Park?

“Let’s get through this one and see how it plays,” said Collins, a former N.F.L. executive. “I don’t see any drop-off. The number of teams and markets that have approached us to be considered suggests that we will have a long run on this. Maybe there will be a different model. Maybe there will be more than one game.”

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Source: nytimes.com