NHL Winter Classic 2009
This year for a combined present for my father’s birthday and christmas I put together a trip for the two of us to go to the NHL Winter Classic game at Wrigley Field in Chicago, January 1, 2009, between the Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Redwings. This turned out to be quite a great trip, and perhaps a bit unlikely since there were apparently 240,000 people signed up in the lottery to get a hair over 40,000 tickets (less the 14,000 or so allocated to Blackhawks season ticket holders, and certainly many held back for the teams). This was going to be a truly once-in-a-lifetime event since certainly we won’t see another outdoor hockey game at one of the two remaining real old-time baseball stadiums. Wrigley is long on history and is the home of the Cubs, which along with the Blackhawks were my father’s two boyhood teams.
I booked a hotel room back in June, well before the game was even announced but there had been some speculation that it was going to happen so I figured I’d get ahead of sellouts and price bumps once the announcement was release. Then I began working my connections to get some tickets since I figured being able to just buy them was probably going to be unlikely. I have several connections that I figured all probably had a good chance of coming up with tickets. It got right down to the wire but finally just a couple weeks before the game a friend (who I now owe beers for life, thanks Amy!) came through with tickets that turned out to be about the best seats in the house (face value was $325 but there were going on StubHub for over $750 a few days before the game, probably even more closer to game time but I forgot to check). I had booked flights in October so was really hoping this would all fall together else I’d be stuck with two tickets to Chicago and no reason to go there.
Also in October I ordered a Blackhawks sweatshirt from NHL Shop online, the plan being to wrap it up with the tickets for my dad’s birthday at the end of November. Well, come the end of November I still didn’t have the tickets and stupid NHL Shop hadn’t shipped the sweatshirt. So, I ordered a Blackhawks t-shirt from the Blackhawks store and had them overnight it to me. That and a printed copy of the Winter Classic logo from the NHL web site would have to do for his birthday. The sweatshirt showed up two days after his birthday so it became a chrismas present (stupid NHL Shop…) along with the actual tickets.
Game Day at Wrigley
We got to Wrigly a couple hours before the game and the whole area was already jammed with people, people everywhere in Blackhawks and Red Wings jerseys and hats and every other team prop you could think of. It seemed like there were as many Wings fans as Hawks fans, but that’s not too unusual, even at Sharks home games against the Wings there are an amazing number of Wings jerseys in the crowd. Anyway, the streets were packed, the concourse inside Wrigley was packed, lines for beer and dogs and t-shirts and nachos were all long, and the place was just fully abuzz with excitement.
For the hour or so before the game we walked around the stands and took pictures from a bunch of different locations. The lower deck seats at a hockey game are usually the best, but this one being so far from the stands (centered on second base) made them seem not so great, far from the ice and low enough that it would be tough to watch the puck. Our seats were in the second deck (section 413 row 8, above the third-base dougout and about even with the goal line). With the way the rink was set up this and the couple sections on either side of us were I think the best seats in the house, along with the same sections above the first-base dogout.
The Hawks started out strong, with a couple quick goals and a huge hit by Ben Eager putting Dan Cleary into the Hawks bench, and followed by a too-many-men penalty when he got back onto the ice because the Wings had already substituted someone in for him. Unfortunately after the start of the second period the Wings took over, and in typical Wing style controlled the rest of the game, scoring 5 un-answered goals before the Hawks could put in their fourth just before the final whistle. In the end the Red Wings beat the Blackhawks 6-4, but it was an overall excellent day nonetheless. After all, neither of us is really a current Blackhawks fan (go Sharks!) and Detroit is definitely the top team again this year (in spite of excellent starts by both the Sharks and Bruins).
I snapped a bunch of photos before and during the game, they follow below with short captions. Most are cellphone shots, sorry for some being a little fuzzy. Click on the photos for a the full-size 3MP version.
Wrigley Field, from across the street.
