Friday, January 01, 2010

2010 Winter Classic, and other commentary

Well the Cyclones have the night off tonight, atop the division in first place. The odd thing is their two division rivals, Kalamazoo and Toledo, play each other tonight. If Toledo wins, they take first place; however, they have played more games so the Cyclones are likely to pass them. Kalamazoo won't not take first place, but they have played fewer games than the Cyclones so they have more games to catch up and pass our team. Who to root for? I don't know. I think instead the thing to want is continued good play from the Cyclones - let them control their own destiny.

I watched the 2010 Winter Classic today. Bruins vs. Flyers at Fenway Park. I thought it was awesome. The "pond hockey" theme is just a good marketing approach by the NHL (and I'm slow to compliment NHL marketing). It is odd, though, that a baseball park really looks like a horrible place to watch hockey. There are virtually no "premium" seats at all. Two of the corners have close seats but that's as close as it gets. The first few rows along the baselines look terrible, below the dashers. I guess the club seats are pretty good.

It's odd because I think hockey does not translate well to television at all - especially to novice watchers who don't understand the game. 16x9 HD TV format helps, but you still can't really see play developing, etc. But, the TV coverage of the Winter Classic was really good, the overhead camera was a nice angle.

I read an article about the future of the winter classic, suggesting possible locations. One that I thought sounded good is Michigan Stadium. 100,000 people at a hockey game. That's cool. Lambeau would be good for a Wild game, too.

We'll see who gets it next year. Too bad Cincinnati is a little too far south - a Blue Jackets game at OSU would be very cool.

From the ice meister perspective, it was interesting that they used smaller Model 440 Zamboni machines at this year's Winter Classic. They were concerned about weight on the temporary ice sheet, so they went with the smaller studio-sized machine.

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