Winter Classic: Penguins, Capitals prepared for anything in 'cool' event, weather or not
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Workers erect temporary stands on Tuesday in the south end of Heinz Field for the Winter Classic.
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Washington winger Mike Knuble has accomplished a lot during his National Hockey League career.
He has appeared in more than 900 games. Put up about 500 points. Played for two Stanley Cup winners.
There is at least one thing he hasn't done yet, however. And won't until Saturday morning.
"That will be the only time where you'll ever have to wake up and open up the curtains to see what you're going to get for your hockey game," he said.
That's because, he will be playing an outdoors game that counts for the first time when the Penguins and Capitals meet in the Winter Classic at Heinz Field that afternoon.
And he hardly is the only one.
Indeed, while the Winter Classic is Game No. 566 on the 2010-11 NHL schedule, it will be "Outdoors Game Whose Result Really Matters No. 1," for most of the participants.
Skating outdoors won't be entirely new for most -- "Growing up in Minnesota, you played Pee-Wees and Mites out on a pond and in outdoor rinks," said Penguins defenseman Paul Martin -- but doing it when two points are at stake is.
They'll discover quickly that there almost certainly will be conditions -- be it wind or rain or glare or snow or some combination thereof -- that could have a profound impact on how the game plays out. And that they will be unlike anything with which players must deal in a conventional game.
"You just have to adapt to whatever there is," Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury said. "The cold, the wind. Just have fun with it. Definitely try to win, but have fun with it."
Although the weather has been fairly cooperative in the league's first three Winters Classics -- staged in Buffalo in 2008, Chicago in 2009 and Boston in 2010 -- being outdoors generally introduces variables that can't be ignored.
When the Penguins faced Buffalo at Ralph Wilson Stadium three years ago, there was heavy snow before and after the game, and enough during the latter stages of play that advancing the puck sometimes became an adventure.
Players carrying it were in constant danger of stickhandling nothing but air, because the puck all but stopped sliding after accumulating snow as it was moving, and numerous passes didn't reach their target because of the coating on the ice.
First Published December 29, 2010 12:00 am
