NHL planning outdoor game for next season according to ESPN.com

It could be a NYR-Pitt game.

 

Isn't the roof at the igloo supposed to be retractable? If so, i say play it there in the middle of January, and then implode the thing a couple hours after the game is over, and move the Pens into their new arena. Obviously the game would have to be a couple of years from now.

 

This might sound crazy but if Bettman's dumb enough to want to do this in the Sun Belt they could probably pull it off at Texas Stadium. The weather is just shitty enough after the first of the year that it might work. Plus the roof holds the cold in really well.

 

Quiet down AQB, you never know what Bettman lackey may be patrolling these boards that you have suddenly tipped off to a sun belt option for the game. If it happens that way, i know who I will be blamming.

 

My guess is at Comerica Park (also operated although not owned by Ilitch), with a rink set up along either the first or the third-base lines. Baseball capacity of the park is 41,000, and probably 10,000 more seats could be added on the field. They'd mostly be awful seats, but they'd sell on the basis of "just being there." Most of the seats in the stands would actually have decent views of the rink -- the mezzanine and upper deck would actually have pretty good sightlines.

The Red Wings against an Original Six foe from the East (my guess, Toronto), probably on the last Saturday night before the Olympic break. If they really wanted to pump it up, they could play a college-NHL doubleheader -- college in the afternoon, NHL at night. If you're going to spend the money to set up the rink on the field, might as well get a couple of gates out of it.

 

The problem with that is that it could just as easily be 80 degrees as 20 at that time of year in the Metromess.

 

NBC Sports does a pretty good job on these big events so if it is success I think it will have less to do with Bettman and more to do with NBC Sports.

I am glad that they seem to be stepping up more in trying to make the NHL work.

Game saturday night in hi def was as good as it gets.