Tahoe could lead to more picturesque locales
Outdoor games have become the the marquee event of the NHL season ever since the league staged the first Winter Classic in Buffalo back in 2008.
There have been games at iconic baseball stadiums like Wrigley Field and Fenway Park and others at college football cathedrals like Notre Dame Stadium.
None of the 30 previous outdoor games had quite a setup like this season, when the league will stage two games this weekend on the 18th fairway of a golf course on the shores of Lake Tahoe, with the Sierra Nevada Mountains towering in the background.
With the COVID-19 pandemic preventing the ability of huge crowds gathering at a stadium, the league opted for a pair of true outdoor games in a picturesque setting far from any stadium.
If the feedback to the games Saturday between Colorado and Vegas and Sunday between Boston and Philadelphia is as positive as it was to the first Winter Classic, the NHL could look for other dazzling outdoor venues in the future.
“We feel this is something that will resonate with sports fans,” NHL chief content officer Steve Mayer said. “I really believe this is going to catch their eye whether you’re a hockey fan or basketball fan or football fan, this is something you’re going to tune into. If we do get a great response, I think at the league office we’ll talk about what the future of games in crazy, beautiful, wonderful landmark places happens to be as we look to the future.”
Playing the game on a golf course next to Lake Tahoe is a much more complicated endeavour than the usual process of going into an existing stadium with infrastructure already in place and building a rink inside.
Workers needed to run pipes from the Mobile Refrigeration Unit and build everything from locker rooms, to GM booths, to replay facilities.
But once that is all in place, the process is the same as in the stadiums with a stage being built on top of the grass and interlocking aluminum pans on top. The refrigeration feeds coolant into the trays and the process begins to form the 2-inch surface of ice.
That process began last week and the rink will be ready in time for practices Friday.
The NHL usually has about a year to plan outdoor games with several site visits from different groups before the process of putting it all together even begins.
None of that happened this time with league officials taking their only visit to the site in December and immediately jumping at the opportunity.
“It was the old expression, ‘You had us at hello,”‘ Mayer said. “We walked out to where the location happens to be and we just took a quick look around and we were like, ‘We’re going to make this work.’ Usually we would come to a site multiple times for planning purposes. We thank the lord for Google Earth and other great pictures of this venue that we were able to work with and kind of develop the plan.”
DOC-UMENTARY
Part of NBC’s Sunday broadcast will be a documentary about retired play-by-play announcer Mike Emrick. “Doc Emrick — The Voice of Hockey” will air at 11 a.m. PT before Bruins-Flyers and include 20 current and former players and broadcasters.
Emrick hasn’t seen it and doesn’t want to know anything about it until it airs. He and wife Joyce are “just going to watch it like everybody else. …
“They’re doing a really nice thing for me.
And I would rather not ask a lot of questions about, well, what are you getting me for Christmas?”
COVID CONCERNS
Among the teams with their seasons put on pause because of the virus, Buffalo returned to game action Monday, Minnesota and New Jersey on Tuesday and Philadelphia is scheduled to play again Thursday.
The Flyers got back on the ice for practice Tuesday with seven players still on the league’s COVID protocols list. Coach Alain Vigneault doesn’t expect any of them to be available for his game against the Rangers.
“You can never say you’re out of the woods, but certainly in the last four days we’ve seen a positive trend,” general manager Chuck Fletcher said.
GAME OF THE WEEK
The Toronto Maple Leafs visit the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday for the fourth meeting of the season between the top two teams in the North Division.
LEADERS
GOALS: Auston Matthews (Toronto), 13; ASSISTS: Connor McDavid (Edmonton), 21; POINTS: McDavid, 30; ICE TIME: Brent Burns (San Jose), 27:12; GOALS-AGAINST AVERAGE: Jaroslav Halak (Boston), 1.38; SAVE PERCENTAGE: Mackenzie Blackwood (New Jersey), .948.
TORONTO — Canadian jazz pianist Oscar Peterson’s legendary career is being celebrated in a Heritage Minute.
Historica Canada released the newest clip, timed for Black History Month, in its ongoing series that highlights influential figures from across the country.
The minute-long video chronicles the seven-time Grammy winner’s rise from a working-class Montreal family to becoming a world-renowned piano virtuoso.
It touches on his encounters with greatness, such as being dubbed “the man with four hands,” and acknowledges the racism he faced at jazz gigs in the 1940s.
Peterson died of kidney failure in 2007 at the age of 82.
Both the English and French versions of the Heritage Minute are narrated by Black Canadian pianists. Oliver Jones plays the voice of Peterson in the English version while Gregory Charles handles the French.
The Heritage Minute is written by Brynn Byrne and directed by Aaron Yeger, known as co-writer and producer of the acclaimed 2015 film “Sleeping Giant.”
Historica Canada also produced a companion video exploring the history of Little Burgundy, a Black working-class community in Montreal and the jazz
culture within it. The separate clip is narrated by Peterson’s daughter Celine Peterson, who was consulted about her father’s Heritage Minute from its inception.
Peterson says her father received many honours throughout his career, but she believes he would be especially proud of seeing his story in a Heritage Minute.
“I think this is one of the ones that would really overwhelm him,” she said.
“People all over the world are familiar with the Heritage Minute, and it’s such a monumental form of recognition.”
Peterson, who serves as producer of the Kensington Market Jazz Festival in Toronto, says the debut of her father’s Heritage Minute during Black History Month is significant.
“A huge part of my dad’s story was racism, first at home and then around the world,” she said, pointing out that it was especially prominent early in his career as he travelled the southern United States.
“He told the story when I was young about driving up on a KKK meeting when they were going from city to city. Hearing him talk about it is still haunting for me today. Maybe even a bit more so now than it was before.”
Peterson’s Heritage Minute is an especially cinematic one, which raises the question of whether his relatives have considered granting the rights for his story to a production company for a feature film.
“In the past, there have been some conversations but nothing that has necessarily been the right fit,” his daughter said.
“Having his story told in that capacity would be natural, to a certain extent. It needs to happen, it’s just a matter of when and by whom.”