Response To SVP’s “1 Big Thing” Segment About the 2017 Winter Classic

ESPN’s own, Scott Van Pelt, is a sports writer and broadcaster that I have looked up to ever since I became interested in pursuing sports writing myself.  His analysis and approach to his unique segments is something that has influenced my own writing and how I view and analyze sports news tremendously, so I was interested to hear his opinion on the latest Winter Classic game played earlier this week.  According to SVP’s statement in his daily segment, “1 Big Thing”, Scott goes on to say that as a “casual sports fan”, this year’s Winter Classic was a significant sports event that he actually completely missed and forgot to watch.  He goes on to say that despite the great ticket sales and TV ratings, the Winter Classic appeared to be under-hyped this year, and as a result, many average sports fans, like himself, forgot it even happened this year.  Scott does mention that college football could have easily distracted him from any other prominent games going on right after New Year’s, but compared to the massive hype the first Winter Classic game received less than 10 years ago, it’s still surprising to hear that even someone as invested in the sports world as Scott Van Pelt did not even know that the Winter Classic, which featured a stellar matchup between two playoff contending, Western Conference teams, even occurred this year.  I know that it can be difficult for a casual sports fan to follow the NHL season, especially with 82 regular season games spaced out somewhat randomly over 6 months, but for a game as significant as the Winter Classic, one of the only outdoor games played every season at the same exact time of the year, to be overlooked and forgotten is definitely something the league should be concerned about going forward with outdoor games.

Personally, I understand why the Winter Classic might seem less important to the average sports fan nowadays.  When the league first introduced the outdoor game in 2008, it featured an unforgettable matchup between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Buffalo Sabres.  The surreal environment, exclusiveness of the game, and the nail-biting finish the 2008 Winter Classic featured is something we may never see in the sports world again, nonetheless the Winter Classic.  However, last Monday’s game between the Blues and the Blackhawks was an incredible outdoor game that featured two big market teams in an iconic stadium.  So why was this game not on the average sports fan’s radar?  In my opinion, this is due to the league trying to capitalize too much on outdoor games.  I believe that after the fantastic success of the debut Winter Classic game in 2008, the NHL quickly decided to create as many outdoor “Classic” games as they possibly could, in an attempt to recreate what happened on New Year’s Day in 2008.  Don’t get me wrong, I personally love and look forward to the Winter Classic, Heritage Classic, and even the Stadium Series every year, but the surplus in outdoor hockey games has watered down the importance of this unique event.  Since the 2008 Winter Classic, there have been 9 Winter Classic games, 8 Stadium Series games, 3 Heritage Classic games, and of course, the Centennial Classic, which occurred only a few days before the Winter Classic this year, and was a game that even I missed, despite the fact that I tend to follow the NHL season attentively.  This insane amount of outdoor hockey can easily be overwhelming to any casual sports fan, and can even make the Winter Classic seem like a somewhat less important event in the sports world.  To make things worse, this excessive amount of “Classic” NHL games often feature similar matchups.  Even though there have been 21 different outdoor NHL games since 2008, only 23 different teams out of the 30 (soon to be 31) NHL teams have appeared in an outdoor game.  This means that select teams have had multiple appearances in outdoor games, and organizations like the Chicago Blackhawks, New York Rangers, Detroit Red Wings, and Pittsburgh Penguins have appeared in 3 or more outdoor games in this short span.  The inability for the league to include all of their 30 teams can make fans of smaller market teams like Florida and Nashville, who have yet to play an outdoor NHL game, less and less excited about each year’s outdoor matchup between teams that have probably already had the privilege to play outside in a phenomenal stadium and environment.  Add the lack of diversity in matchups to the fact that many years have seen a surplus of outdoor games (there were 6 outdoor games played in 2014 alone and the two stadiums series games of the 2015-16 season were played only 5 days apart, and only 51 and 56 days after the Winter Classic) and it’s definitely understandable why the average fan might not consider the Winter Classic as big of a deal or as important as it once was.

However, despite what casual hockey fans might say, this year’s Winter Classic was extremely important.  Not only did the game do well in TV ratings and was hosted by a great sports city, but it brought together a community of sports fans that had previously went through a rough year in the sports world.  At one point, St. Louis had 4 teams in the Big 4 professional sports leagues.  The Cardinals (both football and baseball), the Blues, and the Hawks all called St. Louis home.  Now, after the Rams moved to Los Angeles last year, the only two professional sports teams left in the Mid West city are the baseball Cardinals and the hockey Blues.  This, however, only made this year’s Winter Classic more important to the sports fans of St. Louis, due to the fact that the Blues game against the Blackhawks would be played at the Cardinals legendary stadium, Busch Stadium.  Bringing both St. Louis baseball and hockey fans together under one roof to watch the Blues play and win their first outdoor game in franchise history at Busch Stadium without a doubt helped redeem and uplift the city of St. Louis after a terrible sports year that saw their NFL franchise relocate, their NHL team lose the Western Conference finals to the San Jose Sharks, and their MLB organization get eliminated from the playoffs days before the regular season came to a close.  

It’s still possible to have the Winter Classic become a high anticipated game again.  In fact, during SVP’s segment he mentions some solutions suggested by his colleague, John Buccigross, who is a diehard hockey fan.  Out of all the proposed changes, the one I liked the most, and the one that would probably be the most effective in hyping up the Winter Classic again, would be to have the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Philadelphia Flyers face off in a battle for Pennsylvania at Penn State’s Beaver Stadium.  University Park, being equidistant from both Pittsburgh and Philly, would be the perfect place for these two teams to play each other.  Not only is Beaver Stadium the third largest stadium in the world, being able to hold 100,000 hockey fans, but it also is located in a state with two extremely passionate hockey cities.  By hosting this Pennsylvania matchup at Beaver Stadium, the NHL could create an atmosphere and game even greater and more successful than the 2014 Stadium Series games between the New York Rangers, New York Islanders, and the New Jersey Devils at Yankee Stadium.  

In my opinion, the best way to really increase the excitement for the Winter Classic is to downsize on how many outdoor games occur each year.  I get that the league wants to capitalize on this outdoor hockey game bubble, but too many games can make each event seem less important to the average fan.  Instead of having multiple Stadium Series games a year, and Heritage Classic games that now appear to be played every 3 years, the league needs to have only one, non-Winter Classic outdoor game and one Winter Classic game a year.  Ultimately, having these two non-Winter Classic games alternate every year would be the ideal solution.  You could even declare a neutral stadium in Canada to host the Heritage Classic every year it is held, giving every Canadian team neutral ice to play on while also creating the hockey capital of the world, where hockey fans, especially Canadian hockey fans, would travel to to watch this outdoor game.  These two options would drastically decrease the total number of outdoor games played every year and would restore this excitement for both Winter Classic and non-Winter Classic games.  It’s obvious that outdoor games are great for the league and great the organizations involved.  If the league can make some slight, yet significant changes to the annual outdoor games, the excitement and hype for the Winter Classic could easily match, or surpass, the anticipation seen in the early years of the Winter Classic.  You can check out Scott Van Pelt’s entire segment on the Winter Classic here.

Written by Erik Clark