There were games at iconic stadiums such as Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, Dodger Stadium and Soldier Field. There was Sidney Crosby scoring the shootout winner as snowflakes fell at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Buffalo. More than 105,000 people flocked to Michigan Stadium to watch the Red Wings play the Maple Leafs. More than 85,000 saw the Predators play the Stars at the Cotton Bowl. More than 75,000 watched the Blackhawks play the Bruins at Notre Dame Stadium.
But of the 41 outdoor games the NHL has put on since the 2003 Heritage Classic in Edmonton, the ones NHL chief content officer Steve Mayer — the mad scientist behind the games — gets asked about are the ones nobody could attend: Golden Knights–Avalanche and Flyers-Bruins at Lake Tahoe during the Covid-19 pandemic in February 2021.
“That reinforces how special that particular game was,” Mayer said. “We stepped outside the box, took risks and we spent money. And I think we created something unforgettable.”
Unforgettable is the right word. Wrigley and Fenway are cool, for sure, but once you’ve seen a hockey game inside a baseball stadium, you’ve seen every hockey game inside every baseball stadium. Football stadiums make for massive crowds and millions of dollars at the gate, but they’re all pretty generic by nature. What the NHL created at Lake Tahoe was something entirely different, something that no other sport could pull off. The dearth of crowd noise somehow amplified the incredible vistas. Every camera angle was jaw-dropping. It was utterly spectacular and yes, unforgettable.
Of course, it was kind of a disaster, too. The Vegas-Colorado game was suspended after one period because of sun glare and melting ice and didn’t restart until midnight Eastern Time. And the Philadelphia-Boston game got bumped from NBC to NBC Sports Network because it was delayed more than five hours for the same issue. But that Flyers-Bruins game — on a different channel than expected at a different time than expected — still drew more than a million viewers, the most-watched regular-season game on cable in nearly 20 years.
So why has the NHL retreated to the same old stadiums since? This year’s Winter Classic is between two teams we’ve seen in a Winter Classic (Blackhawks-Blues) in a stadium that’s already hosted a Winter Classic (Wrigley Field). Fact is, there just aren’t many iconic buildings left in which the league can plop down a rink. The visuals become the same over time and the games lose that special feeling. Well, at least on television.
That’s the thing about these games — they’re for the locals and sponsors as much as anything. It’s kind of like All-Star weekend; most of the hockey world couldn’t care less, but when you’re in the city and at the venues, it’s quite a bit of fun (and quite lucrative for the league). Going to an outdoor game in person is an undeniably cool (and often very cold) experience. Watching it on TV is less so.
The local juice is what drives these games. They make millions of dollars in gate revenue for the league and they’re very expensive to produce, so it’s easy to understand why the league is content with the status quo. Invest a few million in infrastructure to make a few million in gate revenue — that’s a tidy bit of business. Heck, Sports Business Journal reported that the Michigan Stadium game netted the league a cool $20 million in 2014. Who’s going to turn that down?
The Lake Tahoe game, meanwhile, didn’t make the league any money. Future non-stadium games could cost a fortune to produce — building temporary seating and NHL-caliber locker rooms, ensuring there’s parking, bathrooms, security. Hot water, even. There’s no cash to grab at a game like this.
Tahoe was born out of unique circumstances. There were no fans in the arenas anyway, so why not do something completely different?
“The league’s priority has always been to host games in packed stadiums, to bring the game to as many people as possible,” Mayer said. “Gary Bettman loves — and so do we — the energy of the live fans. And the second we were able to bring the fans back to the buildings, we just said, OK, let’s go back to doing the outdoor games. Have we talked about other games? Of course. Do we look back at Lake Tahoe fondly? Oh, you bet. It was incredible. But that’s the reason we haven’t been back.”
Well, maybe it’s time the league starts taking risks again. The sports TV landscape is getting more crowded every year. This year’s Winter Classic is at 4 p.m. Central Time on New Year’s Eve to avoid overlapping with the NFL (which plays just about every day of the week now) and the College Football Playoff. The NHL will have some fun with the timing — every hour on the hour, they’ll celebrate a different time zone’s New Year at Wrigley — but it’s getting tougher and tougher to stand out, to break through the noise, to draw eyeballs.
You know how you get eyeballs? Not by rehashing venues. Not by hosting an outdoor game in yet another stadium in London or Prague or Mexico City or Australia. No, you do it with visuals that no other sport can match. The NHL did that in Lake Tahoe. It can do it again all across North America. Rather than chase the immediate payday of a stadium game, the NHL should start thinking about the long game — about drawing in and hooking new viewers to this incredible, talent-laden golden age of the sport, about creating entry points for new fans, about investing now for future dividends. Take the modest financial hit now, and cash in later by growing the game.
Here are 10 modest proposals for future outdoor games, some a little more realistic than others. But hey, it shouldn’t take a global pandemic for us to think outside the box — or outside the stadium, for that matter.
A snow-covered mountain is reflected in Lake Louise in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. (Patrick T. Fallon / Getty Images)
1. Lake Louise
Oilers vs. Flames
The Battle of Alberta in the province’s most iconic setting is the most obvious choice for a Lake Tahoe-style game. Anyone who’s been to Banff and Jasper National Parks (and the breathtaking Icefields Parkway that runs between them) can attest that it’s among the most beautiful places imaginable. The NHL has at least looked into Lake Louise in the past, but Canadian regulations about signage (read: advertising) and construction on public lands are understandably quite strict.
But Canada’s national sport in Canada’s national treasure? C’mon, Canada. Let’s make it happen.
“Lake Tahoe was unique because we used private property, building on the golf course,” Mayer said. “(But) in every one of these games that we do, there’s a fair amount of red tape to work around. We always feel like there are clever and creative ways to put any event on. … Yes, there’s red tape involved, but there are also some of these locations and landmarks that would give anything to have a special event come to their world. So sometimes they’re also very cooperative in getting some of these things done.”
The National Mall in Washington D.C. (Mandel Ngan / Getty Images)
2. The National Mall
Capitals vs. Penguins
Imagine Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin going head-to-head in the shadow of the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Capitol and the White House. Not American enough for you? OK, imagine John Carlson and Bryan Rust instead. The best fit likely would be between the Washington Monument and the Capitol, but it’d be an awe-inspiring sight to see a rink on the other side, between the Washington Monument and the World War II Memorial, with Abraham Lincoln having the best seat in the house across the reflecting pool.
And there’d be room to build temporary seating, which could go a long way toward persuading the NHL it’s worth it. Picture something like Northwestern’s temporary lakefront football stadium but on the Mall.
“If we decide at some point to do something (like this), I don’t think we’d ever do something with no fans (again),” Mayer said. “If we built some sort of mini stadium somewhere and it was extraordinary and it offered fans something they’ve never seen before, I think we could pull something off and do something extremely unique.”
An aerial view of Manhattan looking south over Central Park in New York City. (Stan Honda / Getty Images)
3. Central Park
Rangers vs. Islanders
Hey, if you can have Shakespeare in the Park and Springsteen in the Park, then you can have Rempe in the Park.
Niagara Falls is an easy trip for two hockey markets. (John Moore / Getty Images)
4. Niagara Falls
Sabres vs. Maple Leafs
Who needs the roar of the crowd when you have the roar of 700,000 gallons of water per second rushing over the border between New York and Ontario? Put the rink on the Canadian side. The views are way better.
The busts of U.S. presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln tower over the Black Hills at Mount Rushmore National Monument in Keystone, S.D. (Scott Olson / Getty Images)
5. Mount Rushmore
Wild vs. Utah Hockey Club
OK, we’re really wish-casting now. And given the topography of the area, the league might have to take over the parking lot for a few weeks, essentially shutting down the park to visitors. But the visuals would be spectacular. And Honest Abe gets to take in a second game.
Cinderella’s Castle at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom in Orlando. (Joe Raedle / Getty Images)
6. Disney World
Panthers vs. Lightning
There’s been plenty of speculation that the state of Florida finally will get an outdoor game next season. Mayer and his team do love a challenge, after all. Drop a rink down right in front of the iconic Cinderella Castle in the Magic Kingdom. It’s not that busy there during Christmas break, right? Right? Hello?
An aerial view of Grant Park and the skyline in Chicago. (Tannen Maury / Getty Images)
7. Grant Park
Blackhawks vs. Red Wings
Yes, yes, get your jokes in. We’re talking about yet another Blackhawks outdoor game. But we’ve seen a hockey rink at Wrigley Field before. Why not move the game about six miles south in the same field that hosts Lollapalooza each summer, the same field in which Barack Obama gave his first Election Night speech and where the Blackhawks celebrated the 2013 Stanley Cup championship? With Lake Michigan to the east and the brilliant Chicago skyline to the west, with Buckingham Fountain to the north and the stately museum campus to the south, Grant Park is a magical setting. The park has a natural amphitheater setting, too, so building in bleachers would be feasible. Bears kickers have to deal with the wind whipping off the lake. Why not the Blackhawks?
An aerial view of the pier on Santa Monica Beach. (Mario Tama / Getty Images)
8. Santa Monica Pier
Kings vs. Ducks
The NHL has proven it can put a rink in Los Angeles, with the Kings and Ducks playing at Dodger Stadium in the 2014 Stadium Series. Now picture a rink right on the beach, built right into the sand, with the iconic Ferris wheel and the Pacific waves lapping on the shore a slap shot away. If we can have a basketball game on an aircraft carrier, then surely we can build a level ice surface on the beach.
Fans watch the Vancouver Canucks play the Edmonton Oilers at a “Playoffs in the Park” viewing party for Game 3 of last season’s Stanley Cup second-round playoff series in Vancouver. (Ethan Cairns / Canadian Press via AP)
9. Stanley Park
Canucks vs. Kraken
Yep, same Stanley that the Cup is named after, Governor General Lord Frederick Stanley. This beautiful park is almost entirely covered in trees, but there’s a clearing called Brockton Oval that could accommodate a rink and some bleachers, assuming (again) the NHL could navigate that Canadian red tape that stymied the Lake Louise idea. Vancouver Harbor and the mountains in the distance, with shots of whales breaching in the Pacific leading into commercial breaks? Can’t do much better than that. It would make for an unforgettable setting from perhaps North America’s most picturesque big city.
An aerial view shows Alcatraz island in San Francisco. Alcatraz Island is 1.25 miles offshore from San Francisco and initially was a federal prison before being converted into a tourist attraction. (Josh Edelson / Getty Images)
10. Alcatraz
Sharks vs. Avalanche
You want ratings? Here are your ratings. And there’s a nice tie-in to NHL history here. The first NHL outdoor game ever played was an exhibition match between the Detroit Red Wings and the inmates of the Marquette Branch Prison in Michigan in 1954. Hopefully this game will be a little more competitive than that one; they stopped keeping score after the Wings took an 18-0 lead in the first period. Imagine the views. Imagine the special jerseys the team could come up with. Imagine referee Wes McCauley pausing right before the opening puck drop and saying into his microphone, “Macklin, Nathan … Welcome to The Rock.”
Honorable mentions: Yosemite Valley, the Las Vegas Strip, Yellowstone National Park, Prince Edward Island, Apostle Islands, Liberty Island.
(Top photo of the National Mall: Saul Loeb / Getty Images)
