Could NHL teams host multiple outdoor games?
According to numerous reports, multiple NHL teams have expressed interest in hosting multiple outdoor games during the 2020-21 season. Here's how it could happen.
As chaotic and weird as the 2019-20 NHL season and postseason was, the 2020-21 season could surpass it. The league won’t start until at least January 1, and even that date seems like a significant stretch. February 1st is a more realistic date. Or the start date could be somewhere in between.
The pandemic has significantly altered the financial landscape of the NHL. Several teams are facing turmoil and they’re willing to get a little bit creative to try to pump some much-needed money into their organizations.
According to Elliott Friedman of Sportsnet, as many as four teams could host multiple outdoor games next season. Those teams are the Boston Bruins, Los Angeles Kings, Anaheim Ducks, and Pittsburgh Penguins. He notes it’s a “long shot”, but it’s well within the realm of possibility.
There are several reasons why having multiple outdoor games could be an issue. Firstly, games would be at the mercy of Mother Nature. We’ve had multiple outdoor games delayed due to weather. You need to have pretty ideal conditions to pull off just one outdoor game. Pulling off multiple ones would require a minor miracle.
Secondly, does anyone remember the Nickelodeon show The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius? If you don’t, it’s a cartoon about a boy who’s too smart for his own good and his adventures in life. Most of the episodes revolve around Jimmy inventing something and having it backfire, forcing him to come up with a solution.
In one episode, Neutron doesn’t get all the birthday presents he wants, so he invents a “Hypno-Beam” so he can fool everyone into thinking it’s still his birthday. It gets broken, which means he can’t undo the hypnosis, which means every day is his birthday. Neutron quickly gets sick of this. Outdoor games are kind of like a birthday party. Sure, they’re nice like once a year and you could tolerate them for a short period of time, but after a while, you start to get annoyed by them.
To pull off multiple NHL games, we’re going to need to find ways to keep them fresh. So, let’s see how the Bruins, Kings, Ducks, and Penguins could pull it off.
Boston Bruins
Reportedly, the Bruins are eyeing Fenway Park. I think having a game or two there could work. It’s pretty easy to social distance at Fenway and it's an interesting enough venue to keep people engaged. But two games is probably the maximum they can have without starting to get repetitive.
Gillette Stadium, home of the Patriots, could be a potential site as well. And just like Fenway, it has hosted a Bruins game. Warrior Ice Arena is not an outdoor arena, but it hosts the Boston Pride of the National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL) and it’s the practice arena for the Bruins, so it could be an option.
Time to get crazy. How about a game somewhere on the Boston Commons? There has never been an outdoor NHL game that wasn’t at a stadium of some sort. But a game alongside one of the most memorable areas of Boston? I’d certainly be intrigued enough to watch it.
LA Kings and Anaheim Ducks
I’m putting these two teams together because they’re so close to each other. Anaheim is less than 30 miles southeast of Los Angeles. According to Friedman, the Kings were the first team to propose the chaotic “multiple outdoor games” idea and the Ducks have mutual interest.
According to multiple sources, it was the Kings who first considered the idea several months ago. Owner Anschutz Entertainment Group also owns Dignity Health Sports Park, located 15 miles from the Kings’ home, Staples Center.
The primary tenant at Dignity is Major League Soccer’s LA Galaxy. The stadium seats 27,000. At some point, the Kings informed the Ducks of the idea, and Anaheim was considering making this a joint venture.
Now, nobody wants to drive from Anaheim to Los Angeles a bunch of times. So the Ducks might want to explore some other options. The only problem is, there aren’t too many of them. Angel Stadium of Anaheim is where the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim play. Other than a kind of cool rock thing in the center field area, it’s quite forgettable.
So, let’s get crazy! What’s Anaheim known for? Disneyland. Is an outdoor game at Disneyland plausible, or even possible? I don’t know. But I’d sure like to find out and it might just be insane enough to work.
As far as the Kings, a game at Dodger Stadium would be pretty awesome. SoFi Stadium (home of the LA Rams and LA Chargers) could work as well. Want a crazy idea? How about a game somewhere with the Hollywood sign in the backdrop? That would be sick.
Pittsburgh Penguins
Full disclosure - I am from Baltimore and I’m a Washington Capitals fan. I hate Pittsburgh with every ounce of my soul. But I made a promise to not say anything mean about Pittsburgh until November 2021 because the state of Pennsylvania pulled through during the 2020 election. Saying Wawa is objectively better than Sheetz doesn’t count as something mean about Pittsburgh, right?
If the Penguins want to have outdoor games, they better do it right by playing at least one of them at PNC Park, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates. PNC Park is easily a top 5 baseball stadium and it deserves to be the home of a good team. Unless you want a football game on a baseball diamond or some technicality where the Pirates are the “road” team in their own stadium, the Penguins are PNC Park’s only shot.
Secondly, PNC Park has such a great view. Pittsburgh, though it’s *remembers my promise* (darn it)… not perfect, the view of the Alleghany River, the Pittsburgh skyline, and the Roberto Clemente Bridge (AKA the Sixth Street Bridge) comes pretty darn close. It’s breathtaking. I’ve been to PNC Park six times and I have yet to think anything other than “wow, this park is gorgeous”.
Hines Field hosted the 2011 Winter Classic. I went there and I’m not going to lie, the weather delay was way too long so I was drunk throughout the game and I don’t really remember anything other than the Capitals winning and all the weather.
Multiple outdoor games might sound nuts. But take it from someone who is nuts - sometimes, we need to embrace chaos. From the sounds of it, the 2020-21 season will be a chaotic one.