Nothing but the classics

Hockey is a weird as fuck sport when you break it down. All other sports are played on normal surfaces like grass, but hockey is on ice. It also involves a weird peppermint patty looking thing that’s made out of rubber that you slap with a chunk of wood. The lines, rules, whatever else is par for the course in weird shit that you come up with for a game. But ice? What the shit, man?

Lesser places have bountiful amounts of ice, and at one point some weirdo decided that a sharp metal edge is the best thing to traverse ice. Then...hockey? At some point this became normal, and people in frozen wastelands like Canada and whatever else is Beyond The Wall played it.

Later on, someone probably realized playing on the surface of frozen water was hard to have normal boundaries and regulations. Also, that the ice could break resulting in, well, potential death.

So hockey came indoors once they got that whole thing figured out. It was easier to setup for the sport and actually play it. Thus, the NHL and yada yada yada. Main point is: hockey is played inside. It always has been. That’s how everyone plays hockey except for a few kooks that want to freeze their dicks off or have the capability/wealth to make their own rinks outside.

Then the Winter “Classic” happened.

Sure, the NHL had taken a gamble with an outdoor game around the early 90s but it was also the early 90s and we were crazy then! The game was in Las Vegas for fucks sake! College idiots then tried it, and naturally Canada had to go try and be backwardsy and shit, and called it a Heritage Classic. Nevermind it was the first outdoor regular season game so it couldn’t really be a classic anything if it’s the first.

But “classic” it was. And then NHL tried their hand at it. And it was stupid as shit. It was freezing outside, dumping snow, and featured the city of Buffalo with their shitty ass football team’s stadium. There was a third period and then the fucking third point five period. The goalies had trouble seeing, the ice was slop, and it was tacky as fuck.

It also made the league a shit ton of money. Which is after all the bottom line. Fans wanted more. So the NHL kept doing New Years Day games and eventually a “Stadium Series” of more outdoor games. People kept showing up. TV ratings were decent. The whole thing smacked of a cash grab and were haphazardly slapped together to capitalize on the fad. People wanted more outdoor games though.

Minnesota wouldn’t shut the fuck up about it. No one showed up. Or watched. St. Louis gets a game this year featuring the Blackhawks 47th appearance in one. California has had two. There was something like twenty outdoor games played in the 2014 season, including several all at Yankee Stadium. It’s completely burnt out the fans and the teams, and means a ton of labor setting up for these things.

So let’s keep having them! It’s great because it means more asses in more seats and finally everyone would shut the fuck up about hosting one. Let’s just have the whole NHL play outside from here on out! The Kings and Ducks can use Dodger Stadium and Angel Stadium. The Sharks can use the jean factory or whatever it is where the 49ers play. The 49ers can play on ice, they couldn’t possibly look worse as it is. The Canadian franchises can make their home cities pay for new stadium construction because they are already doing that for indoor arenas. We’d finally be acknowledging the “Classic” portion was completely meaningless from the get go, and that the whole continued premise of them was to get rich off our dumb fucking neanderthal brains that crave sports to begin with. Plus, the whole league would be classic!

Imagine “Game Three between the Arizona Coyotes and Winnipeg Jets Regular Season Classic!” or the “Sixth Meeting of the Season for the Columbus Blue Jackets and New Jersey Devils Classic!” Classic jerseys to buy! Classic beer to drink. Classic urinals to piss in. Fall Classics because fuck the World Series! Summer Classics because fuck the Beach Boys! The possibilities are endless.

It won’t make a matchup between Los Angeles and San Jose more entertaining however, though maybe if I was at the outdoor game the cold or rain or something would keep me awake. Oh yeah, and the teams have to play in however the weather conditions are. For all this talk about how tough hockey players are, they are a bunch of babies about that. I mean, soccer players can do that.

Prediction: The Kings and Sharks play indoors and I fall asleep drunk at 8:30. I discover the Kings lose when I am forced to write another lousy BoC gameday post.