I was watching some of the Winter Classic New Year’s Day and the idea of going out to Notre Dame for the Notre Dame-Michigan hockey game in the stadium reoccurred to me (the Winter Classic would have been cool, but it wasn’t really a possibility because I had to work the next day). I had thought about it before. But I was worried about the weather. The cold wasn’t so much what I was worried about. It was the possibility of getting stuck out there because of snow. I’d have to come back on a Sunday and go to work on Monday so if there was a big snow storm in the Midwest or Northeast, I could get stuck out there. So I checked the weather on New Year’s Day and it looked good. The next things I checked were flights and hotels. I got a room for $56. Flights to South Bend were not too bad either. So I ended up deciding on Wednesday fly to South Bend on Saturday for the game.
When I first considered going out for the game, I thought about getting in on Friday night. There were two issues with that. First, getting a flight that would leave late enough for me to work on Friday was an issue. I think there might have been some options, but they were either cutting it pretty close or they would have been more expensive. The other thing with going out on Friday night would have been that would have meant another night in a hotel. If I had gone on Friday night, I could have gone to the basketball game at noon on Saturday. But as it turned out, that would not have been much fun. This has been a rough year for Notre Dame basketball. Our freshman class is supposed to be good, but it’s good for a freshman class that’s actually going to go to class and be legitimate students (you know, unlike the freshmen at Kentucky and Duke). So hopefully next year will be much better.
Anyway, I really wanted to go because how many times are we going to play hockey in Notre Dame Stadium? This probably won’t happen again for a long time. So I’ve now seen Notre Dame play hockey in a hockey arena (Compton Family Ice Arena), a baseball stadium (Fenway Park), a basketball arena (Barclays Center), a football stadium, and a fencing arena (we played in the north dome of the Joyce Center when I was a student, it wasn’t nice for hockey and now it’s the home of Notre Dame Fencing). As far as outdoor hockey games go, the shape of a football stadium is definitely better than a baseball stadium and Fenway Park’s layout is probably about as bad as a baseball stadium could be for hockey (but still, it’s Fenway Park, so I was totally cool with hockey there).
It was still Christmas vacation for the students so you had nobody on campus and most stuff on campus (other than the bookstore) was closed. It was pretty weird being on campus with nobody around except for the fans for the hockey game. I definitely would have preferred if they switched the dates of the outdoor NHL games so that Notre Dame would host a game later and then they could have a Notre Dame hockey game with the students on campus, but oh well.
The game was not fun. It was delayed an hour because of sun glare (it's unusual to see the sun in South Bend between November and March, but fortunately the delay was announced in advance). Michigan scored three goals in the first ten minutes. We scored in the second and then late in the third to give ourselves a chance, but Michigan put it away with an empty net goal. If it had been a football game, I would have been miserable. But it was cool to see hockey in Notre Dame Stadium.
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| I had a pretty good view for the game. This is the opening face off. |
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| It was probably a better picture once the sun went down. |
It was my first event in the stadium since the renovations have been completed. It’s been a while since I’ve been there for a football game. I did see the stadium when I did the tour over the summer, but I hadn’t been there for a game. The crowd was 23,422, which was the biggest crowd ever for a home hockey game for Notre Dame. One thing I noticed was that they should have done a much better job with the jumbotron. They never showed any highlights of Michigan’s last two visits to Notre Dame stadium or Notre Dame beating Michigan on a buzzer beater in the Frozen Four last year. Don’t worry, I’ve included them for you below. Apparently when we played Michigan a few weeks later in the Compton Family Ice Arena, they had Brian Kelly on the big screen making fun of Michigan for not scoring. They definitely should have made better use of the jumbotron for this game.
I was thinking about where I’d want to see outdoor hockey games played. I’m limiting this to US venues. Outdoor hockey in Canada is totally cool with me (it is hockey, after all), but I’m just not very familiar with which outdoor venues in Canada would be possible for hockey. For American venues, football stadiums are better for viewing the game in person, but I'm cool with playing games in baseball stadiums as long as they're good stadiums. There's no reason to play in whatever the White Sox stadium is called these days, but Wrigley Field is cool. So here’s what I came up with (places that have already hosted NHL games are in bold):
Bruins- Fenway Park (definitely not Gillette Stadium or at Boston College)
Rangers- Yankee Stadium, Michie Stadium at West Point, Central Park (Major League Baseball built a temporary stadium at Fort Bragg, so I figure the NHL could do something like that).
Sabres- Ralph Wilson Stadium
Flyers- Citizens Bank Park, Lincoln Financial Field
Penguins- PNC Park, Heinz Field
Capitals- Nationals Park, National Mall, Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium
Hurricanes- Clemson Memorial Stadium
Blue Jackets- Ohio Stadium (I guess, I’d rather not have games played at colleges that I despise), FirstEnergy Stadium in Cleveland, Paul Brown Stadium
Blackhawks- Notre Dame Stadium, Wrigley Field, Soldier Field, Lambeau Field
Blues- Busch Stadium, Kauffman Stadium, TD Ameritrade Stadium
Predators- Neyland Stadium
Wild- Target Field, TCF Bank Stadium, Lambeau Field
Stars- Cotton Bowl (next year's Winter Classic site), Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium, Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium
Avalanche- Coors Field, Broncos Stadium, Falcon Stadium (Air Force, this is happening next year), Albertsons Stadium (Boise State), LaVell Edwards Stadium (BYU)
Sharks- AT&T Park
Kings/Ducks- Dodger Stadium, Rose Bowl
Let’s shift to baseball because it’s coming soon. Tom Verducci also had an idea for baseball to do something similar to the NHL Winter Classic. And baseball has kind of started to do it. They had the Fort Bragg Game, the Williamsport games with the Little League World Series, and this season they’re going to play at TD Ameritrade (in Omaha where the College World Series is played). There are a few problems with doing it in baseball though. The first is that a baseball field is much bigger than a hockey rink so there aren’t as many places that seem like obvious options. The second is that for some teams, you’re not going to beat where they regularly play their games. Are you going to have the Red Sox play somewhere other than Fenway Park? Wait, don’t answer that, they’re having the Red Sox play two home games in London this season. At least when the Dodgers played in Sydney, they were the road team. I’m okay with playing outdoor baseball in other countries in soccer or cricket stadiums. But if we’re limiting this idea to the United States, here are some places where I’d like to see baseball games:
Actual Baseball Stadiums that Work:
TD Ameritrade Stadium
BB&T Ballpark at Historic Bowman Field (Williamsport)
Baseball Fields that have Issues to Resolve:
Doubleday Field (center field is a little short, the rest of the outfield dimensions are definitely a problem)
Field of Dreams (field dimensions are a big problem)
Temporary Stadiums Would Have to be Built:
National Mall
The foothills near Mount Rushmore
Central Park (have the Mets play there, don’t make the Yankees play a home game outside of Yankee Stadium)
Any military bases
Football Stadiums:
Rose Bowl
Any number of SEC football stadiums or Clemson Memorial Stadium for a Braves game
Lambeau Field
Major League Baseball has already shown that they can build a temporary stadium. We know Williamsport and Omaha work. Could they make some football stadiums work for baseball (I mean the Dodgers used to play at the Los Angeles Coliseum, so I’d think so). What about Doubleday Field or the Field of Dreams? The dimensions are an issue for sure. Maybe you put up big screens to make hitting home runs more difficult (they might have to be the whole field rather than just left field like the Los Angeles Coliseum used to have). You'll notice I didn't include Notre Dame Stadium. I love Notre Dame, but I'm not putting baseball in a stadium with fake grass (I wish we'd go back to real grass for football)
I also think the Blue Jays should take one homestand each season to a different place in Canada and just embrace being Canada's team. Like I said, I don't know about the outdoor venues available in Canada, but Canadian football fields are bigger than American football fields so I'd have to think they could make some CFL stadiums work.
I’ve been off this week and I’ve spent the week watching Ken Burns’s Baseball documentary. It’s really good. I’m almost done. I love the sport so much. If I could go back in time, my first stop would have to be Brooklyn in the 1950s, right? There are some changes to baseball I’d like to see made. Why could games be played so much faster decades ago? One of the biggest reasons for that is the way pitchers are used. I wish there was a way to change that other than the rule that there’s been talk about that would require pitchers to face at least three batters. My answer was to limit the number of pitchers on a roster and having two relief pitchers inactive for each game. I also really don’t want to see the DH in the NL. I hate that idea so very much.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to the season. Hopefully this year is finally next year the way 1955 was. I think I’ll be seeing baseball games in at least five different Major League stadiums this year, including Tropicana Field. I’ve resisted going there, but it’s going to happen during my Easter vacation. That would leave just the Oakland Coliseum (until the Rangers get their new stadium). I’m going to try to make that happen over the summer, but I don’t have anything planned for sure on that one yet. I’m also hoping to make it to Alaska for some of the Alaska Baseball League (a summer league for college players). Alaska is the only state I have left to get to. And I have a few minor league stadiums I’d like to get to over the summer as well.
Winter is almost over. College basketball is about to get good. And I love college basketball, but it’s baseball that I’m really looking forward to. I’ll leave you with one of my favorite parts of the Ken Burns documentary:
