2009 NHL Winter Classic
The NHL Winter Classic 2009 ( official sponsors name Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic, 2009) was an outdoor ice hockey game between the Detroit Red Wings and the Chicago Blackhawks, which on 1 January 2009 at the Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois, USA as part of the NHL season 2008/ 09 was held. It was the second edition of the NHL Winter Classic -mentioned series of outdoor games in the history of the National Hockey League after the Heritage Classic, which was held in Edmonton in 2003. It was the first Winter Classic, at least a team of so-called " Original Six " was involved.
Stadium and environment
Stadium
→ Main article: Wrigley Field
The match took place on the Wrigley Field, a baseball stadium in Chicago, which is used by the Chicago Cubs of Major League Baseball. It was built in 1914 and is now after Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, where the Winter Classic was held the following year, the second- oldest operating ballpark of North American professional league. Besides baseball, the arena is sometimes used for American football games or concerts.
In the preliminary round to Chicago prevailed over New York City, which had also applied to host the Winter Classic. In New York would be the game in the old Yankee Stadium, was until 2008 home of the New York Yankees, discharged. The decision was made for logistical reasons against New York since Yankee Stadium was closed and was to be demolished; a possible NHL game would have ever been in the arena the last event. Originally the game at Soldier Field should be held in Chicago, as the Chicago Bears, however, only a week later, there should deliver a play-off game, this plan was discarded.
The Beaver Stadium, the largest open- air stadium in the United States and home of the football team at Pennsylvania State University was, according to media reports also on the shortlist, but only if the two participating teams, the Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia would have been Flyers. Since the Penguins had, however, already participated in the NHL Winter Classic 2008, this scenario for 2009 was rejected.
Preparations
The construction of the ice rink began on 16 December 2008 and was supervised by Dan Craig, the NHL Facilities Operations Manager of. The bottom of the playing surface was made of plywood and aluminum plates with a pipe system for cooling, which came from a car parked outside the stadium truck. Due to the 95-year baseball history of the stadium, the inner region with many bonds was designed from the baseball sport.
Side events
40 818 spectators watched the game in the stadium. In addition to playing a fan - festival was held under the title Winter Classic Spectator Plaza area surrounding the stadium. Admission is free and the fans on 31 December 2008 and 1 January 2009, a framework program was offered, which included, among other things, live music, interactive games or ice sculptures.
Preliminary Program
In the course of the game, numerous events were held in the stadium and outside. At the opening ceremony alongside former Red Wings and Blackhawks players had Billy Williams, Ferguson Jenkins and Ryne Sandberg, all Baseball Hall of Famer of the Chicago Cubs, with. Sandberg also presented along with Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita and Denis Savard during a break in the third third of the baseball anthem Take Me Out to the Ball Game, however, contained in the presented version also numerous allusions to the sport of ice hockey.
Reporting
The game was broadcast live in the United States by the NBC television network in Canada showed the CBC stations in English and RDS in French the game. The broadcasting rights for Europe secured the transmitter NASN. In addition, the meeting about the league own fee-based portal NHL GameCenter was broadcast live on the Internet. With 4.4 million viewers on NBC, it was the most watched game in the regular season since a match between the Philadelphia Flyers and the New York Rangers on February 23, 1975.
Rule Changes
Due to the discharge in the open air some minor rule changes have been made to ensure that equal opportunity was given in adverse conditions for both teams ahead of the game. Due to the expected wind, the rules were changed so that the teams after the first half of the final third once again changed sides, so that each team played one of the two gates every 30 minutes.
Game History
To match both teams wore jerseys that were different from their regular and were inspired by historical jerseys of both teams. The home team ran in a mixture of the jerseys of the seasons to 1936/37 and 1937 /38 in the colors black, white and red as well as the original team logos. The Red Wings played in the jerseys of the previous team Detroit Cougars for the season 1926/27, whose first season in the NHL, leaning against equipment in the colors white and red While there was the logo of the Cougars on the chest, however, was for the arms the traditional Red Wings logo used.
Ty Conklin was in goal for the Red Wings, making him the only player who had participated in all hitherto discharged outdoor games of the league, after he had accrued to Heritage Classic 2003 for the Edmonton Oilers and the Winter Classic in 2008 for the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The first three goals of the game were all on the powerplay. After almost three and a half minutes Kris Versteeg brought the Blackhawks with his first NHL goal lead, before Mikael Samuelsson was also able to compensate in the majority for the Red Wings. Goals from Martin Havlát and Ben Eager, the Blackhawks led to the first intermission 3-1. Then the Red Wings scored five goals in a row. In the second third Jiří Hudler initially met twice before Pavel Datsyuk gave the Red Wings a 4-3 lead. Brian Rafalski and Brett Lebda just 17 seconds later, the lead built in the third period on 6-3 before Duncan Keith succeeded ten seconds left in the game brought the score for the Blackhawks.