Pattie's Photo Blog

People have been asking me how it was to attend the Winter Classic at Fenway Park on New Year’s Day, and I’m finally getting around to doing something more substantial than a giving a brief spiel in the hallway at work, a hurried email, or a Facebook comment. My husband and I have talked about going to a Winter Classic game, and when it was announced that the Bruins would host this year, and it was rumored that their opponents would be either the Flyers (his team) or the Capitals (my team), we knew we’d move heaven and earth to go. Alas for me, rumor had it that NBC pushed the league into going with the Flyers because NBC execs thought they would be better for ratings. (Rumor has it that the league wants the Caps to be in next year’s Classic so badly, the game will be scheduled around them, probably against the Rangers at Yankee Stadium. We’ll see.)

So once we decided to go, the biggest hurdle was obtaining tickets. Bruins season ticket holders got tickets, Flyers season ticket holders were entered into a lottery for tickets, the NHL held an open lottery (I think there was a U.S. lottery and a Canadian lottery) for tickets, and some agencies sold packages (very pricy packages) that included tickets, some sponsors held contests, and then there were tickets on the secondary market. My husband bought our tickets on eBay substantially above face value (but a lot less than some sellers were asking). He thought he bought them from a Bruins’ season ticket holder, but unfortunately, they were from a bottom-feeding scumbag who entered the NHL lottery apparently only to resell the tickets. I don’t know what the solution is, but I wish there was a better way to ensure that fans who will use them get the tickets. But I digress…

We left our midtown hotel on the morning of New Year’s Day and took an MBTA bus that dropped us off directly in front of Fenway. It wasn’t even 11 a.m. (gates opened at 11 for the purported 1 p.m. start time, although we knew there would be pregame ceremonies and festivities, and the puck would drop long after 1 p.m.), and the area was already mobbed. There was a large souvenir shop on the corner that was completely packed with fans, so I decided to skip that for the time being.

A large lot across the street had been set up as a fan zone with a live band, sponsor booths, food and beverage tents, photo ops (ice carving and dummies in full hockey gear that you could pose behind, making you look like you were a hockey player), and other activities for fans. We walked though the area for a few minutes and decided to head to the park since it was 11a .m. I bought a few souvenirs at a smaller stand (all very expensive) before we headed out.

Commemorative banners ringed the ballpark and hung across the streets. We had to find the park entrance that matched our tickets. Our seats were next to the famous Green Monster (according to Wikipedia, we were in the “Nation’s Nest,” just to the right in center field, in the third row). One section of the streets the surrounded the park was blocked off, so we had to walk around the long way, and when we finally got there, the usher who scanned our tickets said there was a problem with them and we had to go to the box office. WHAT? He said the scanner just said there was a problem and told him to tell us to go to the box office, so he didn’t know what was wrong with them. He directed us to a nearby box office, where we waited in line, and finally were “assisted” by a woman who accused us of having counterfeit tickets and grilled my husband about where he got the tickets for several worrisome minutes before she finally looked up our tickets. Turns out that the huge video screen set up on the field near the Green Monster wasn’t exactly where it had been planned to be, and it blocked the view of our seats, so our seats had been flagged in the system as obstructed. But she couldn’t help us; we had to go back to the main box office, which had a crazy long line. We finally got in, and the new ticket agent acted at first like she had no idea what my husband was talking about. She got a supervisor and after speaking to him/her, told us that they knew our seats were obstructed but the game was a sellout and they weren’t sure what to do, so to stand to the side while they figured it out. (This is my biggest beef about the game: they KNEW they had a problem enough to flag our tickets in advance, but they couldn’t figure out in advance to find 2 more seats for us to sit in? Can you say “lack of planning”?) After a few minutes she called my husband back up and gave us 2 tickets in one of the right field boxes. Not as good a view of the rink as we would have had from our original seats (assuming the screen wasn’t blocking us), but we could see the video screen, the stage, and scoreboard, which we wouldn’t have been able to see from our original seats.

We walked all the way back around Fenway to find the new entrance and found our seats (directly behind Pesky’s Pole, which only blocked our view of some of the pregame festivities, since the entire rink was to our left), and then got some lunch – standard ballpark food, but as an older park, cash only (dude! It’s 2010, how can you not take plastic?). We got back to our seats and discovered a problem: I couldn’t fit in my seat. The seats were built to accommodate American bodies were built like 100 years ago (skinnier) to watch summertime baseball games (while dressed for summer’s heat), not for someone with a butt the size of Texas who was wearing heavy fleece hunter’s pants over long johns over said big butt. However, we switched seats so I was on the aisle, and my butt fit there (go figure). Not that it really mattered, though; once the game started, fans in the first row stood up, so the people behind them stood up, and everyone else had to stand up. I thought it might be like a combination of a normal hockey game and a NASCAR race where people stood up at the beginning and then again for fights and goals, returning to their seats in between; nope, everyone stood for the entire game. All of the seats had been covered with commemorative seat cushions; well, at least they were useful for sitting pre-game and made nice souvenirs.

Until warm-ups, there were kids from the Boston and Philly area playing hockey on a “pond” in the outfield area, and rosters were announced, but nothing really happened until the players took the ice less than 10 minutes before 1 p.m., most of them wearing toques. The temperature at the start of the game was in the upper 30s, with overcast skies but almost no wind, and between all of my layers, and the heat of all of the bodies packed into the stands, I was warm enough that I took off my coat and kept it off and was pretty comfortable, climate-wise, until the end of the third period when the temperature dropped and few degrees and the wind picked up, and I had to put my coat back on. In fact, until then, I’d say the weather couldn’t have been more perfect for an outdoor game – not so cold you were worried about frostbite or hypothermia, but not so warm as to ruin the ice, the skies were overcast so there wasn’t too much glare for the players from the ice, and there was very little wind with no precipitation.

Bruins fans definitely outnumbered the Flyers fans in the stands, but that didn’t stop the Philly faithful from starting “LET’S GO, FLYERS!” chants even before the game started. Eventually the Bruins fans inserted their own chant in the pause between, so it went like this:

LET’S GO, FLYERS!

LET’S GO, BRUINS!

LET’S GO, FLYERS!

LET’S GO, BRUINS!

Although there was definitely some competitiveness between the opposing fans, it never got nasty, as it does in some NHL arenas. In fact, the most antagonistic chants were something just about everyone in the seats could agree on: repeated chants of “YANKEES SUCK” (LOL, what sport are we playing today?), and whenever a commercial featuring Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby came up on the video screen, his image was loudly booed.

After warm-ups were over and the players went back to their locker rooms, the Zamboni machines were still resurfacing the ice at 1:15 p.m. Finally people started emerging from the entrance in the outfield wall for the pregame ceremonies. Boston’s mayor officially proclaimed some sort of official day to mark the event. A colonial musket, fife and drum corps entered the outfield and positioned themselves under the Green Monster. People carrying a flag for each NHL club surrounded the outfield. Some of them really seemed to be enjoying themselves and getting into the event, while other looked bored or nervous (or maybe just really cold). Another band entered the outfield and positioned themselves next to the fife and drum corps. Then representatives of Boston entered: fire, police, EMS, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, members of the military services, and they all set up in designated positions. Meanwhile, the Dropkick Murphys were setting up on the stage that was set up in front of the rink, near home plate. It wasn’t until I saw an overhead shot of the game on TV that I knew was the stage was shaped like a baseball diamond. The Dropkicks performed one song (to their credit, they played to both sides of the stage) and were gone. While they were performing, some of the other folks on the outfield pulled out acres of banner and other flags, and the outfield was a kaleidoscope of color. The Murphys exited, and after a few fireworks, the honorary team captains were introduced: Bobby Orr for the Bruins, and Bobby Clarke for the Flyers. My husband had recognized Clarke before the game as we passed by him while we were heading to the main box office for our ticket snafu, and he was pretty mad at himself for not stopping Clarke and asking if I could take their picture. The Flyers skated onto the ice first, and then the Bruins players were individually introduced by the PA announcer.

An Army veteran of Iraq (and maybe Afghanistan?) did the ceremonial puck drop with the honorary captains, and now it was time for the national anthems, with Oh Canada sung by one-hit wonder Daniel (“Bad Day”) Powter, and New England native James Taylor singing the Star-Spangled Banner.

We expected a flyover, and the timing was a little off, but well worth the wait for the Stealth Bomber that silently glided overheard, followed by more fireworks.

Finally, it was time for opening faceoff. It happened at 2:42 according to my camera, which is one hour fast (due to DST) and a few minutes fast, so it was probably 1:39 p.m. The teams provided lots of hits and even a flight (the first in Winter Classic history) in the first period, but no goals, so the teams finished the period with a 0-0 tie. There wasn’t very much in the way of intermission activities. The kids returned to their game on the “pond,” a couple of guys did an ice sculpture carving, and someone off to the side was inflating and releasing helium-filled balloons shaped like snowflakes (at least, that’s all I remember).

The Flyers scored early in the second period when Bruins goalie Tim Thomas was distracted by Scottie Hartnell and was more concerned with cross-checking Hartnell than watching the puck. Oops. 1-0 Flyers. During the second intermission (or maybe it was a TV time out?), some members from the 1960 U.S. men’s Olympic ice hockey team came out to the stage. That’s right, 1960 (not 1980), the almost-forgotten gold medal-winning team. Apparently several members of the 1980 men’s team were there as well for one of the TV networks in conjunction with the announcement of the 2010 men’s team after the game, but they were not officially recognized in the stadium.

The third period started with the Flyers still leading 1-0. The lights were probably on for the whole game, but they were really noticeable during the third period and overtime, with the sun going down and the clouds increasing. Flyers faithful were already grumbling that the league hates the Flyers and would do everything within its power (including influencing the referees) to make sure the Bruins won. But it looked like the Flyers might pull it off. However, after a TV time out, Dennis Leary and some Boston comedian (sorry, never heard of him before, don’t remember his name) led the crowd in singing along to “Sweet Caroline,” just as the crowd does during the eighth inning at Red Sox games.

Sweet Caroline

Ba ba ba

Wow, even with those guys really butchering the melody, it just seemed so iconic to be singing “Sweet Caroline” karaoke-style en masse in Fenway Park.

Good times never seemed so good

So good! So good! So good!

After we finished singing, the game was back on, and the momentum finally shifted to the Bruins. Well, maybe the increasing wind and two Bruins power plays in the last four minutes helped in that regard, and the Bruins finally scored to tie the game at one apiece. Some male fans in front of us took off their shirts (I suspect alcohol must have been involved, because it was pretty cold and windy by then). There was no resurfacing of the ice before OT and the teams did not switch sides, and right after a sloppy line change that should have resulted in a bench minor for too many men on the ice against the Bruins, the Bruins scored to win the game. I would have liked to stay to see the post-game ceremonies, but my husband was furious and wanted to leave immediately, and I didn’t want to argue, so we left. Unfortunately, as we later learned, our planned bus back to our hotel was running on an alternate route due to game day traffic (although the MBTA website did not say so), so it took us a while to get back to our hotel.

While it was far from a perfect day, just being there was pretty damn amazing, and I am really glad we went and got to experience a Winter Classic game in person. Part of me thinks that attending one Winter Classic live was enough for a lifetime, but another part of me knows that if the Capitals participate in a future Classic, I will do everything within my power to be there. And I'll bring one of my DSLR cameras instead of my little Canon PowerShot S2. (These photos are just a few of the many I took that day; you can see all of them in my Fotki account.)