In a decade marked by dreary Stanley Cup finals series, boring hockey and a season-wrecking lockout, a snowy day in Orchard Park may have marked a turning point for the NHL. So says this New York Times article, which several of you graciously sent to my attention.
The Sabres-Penguins game of Jan. 1, 2008 certainly seems like it will go down in history as a watershed moment for the league. The Winter Classic has quickly become part of the annual landscape of the league, with this year's game at Fenway Park between the Flyers and Bruins getting huge hype and many teams pining to be a future host of an event that has dwarfed the All-Star Game in media coverage.
Wrote author Jeff Z. Klein, "... if hockey fans 10 years from now are following an N.H.L. that is healthy and prosperous, they can look back at that snowy afternoon outside Buffalo as the day the league saved itself."
Cool stuff. And thanks to Syracuse Post-Standard assistant news editor Larry Dietrich for pointing out that Klein is one of his fellow mates from Sweet Home High, Class of '74. Small world. What am I? Sweet Home, Class of '83.
---Mike Harrington
(www.twitter.com/bnharrington)
tagged
NHL | Sabres | TV/Radio/Media | Winter Classic
