The NHL yesterday hosted a bloggers-only conference call with NBC color guy Ed Olczyk, in conjunction with the league rolling out its on-site preparations at Fenway Park for the Winter Classic. We were fortunate enough to be invited to participate, and I’d swiftly sign up for the next call with Olczyk. He was sincere and engaging, thoughtfully wide-ranging in his reflections, warm and personable. Good on the league for arranging this gig, and may many more follow it. If we find a transcript of the session on NHL.com, we’ll post it.
Some big-picture reflections from Olczyk, who will do the color for the Bruins-Flyers from Fenway on New Years Day:
- One of the biggest lessons the league learned from the first Winter Classic game in Buffalo two years ago was getting on site early and getting the ice down early so that it could settle and be managed and maintained in a way that ensured playing surface integrity to the fullest extent possible. You may recall the numerous delays the first Classic experienced as technicians hurriedly patched holes and such. The league was afforded exceptionally cold and dry conditions for 2002′s Heritage Classic in Edmonton, which didn’t present any playing surface challenges (except for shoveling snow). (Staying warm that Siberian night did, however.)
- The league has a real challenge, Olczyk suggested, in preserving this game’s special appeal, and not having it devolve into “just another game five or six years from now.”
- On the enduring virtue of outdoor hockey: Olczyk noted that hockey suffers from its notable expenses — not just the cost of gear but the rates for an hour of indoor practice time. Certainly the greater Washington scholastic programs know all about this. The comparatively cost-free outdoor game offers the additional virtues of unscripted (and subsequently more creative) play, and this, Olczyk suggested, is very healthy for the developing hockey player. I couldn’t agree more.
- Eddie O also expressed support for the league’s consideration of taking the Winter Classic to non-northern climates — he pointed out, for instance, that in LA on Tuesday it was a brisk 48 degrees. That’s certainly an extreme example, but at some point you have to figure that one way the league can preserve this game’s special aura is to broaden the geography for it.
- One blogger wondered if Olczyk thought it possible for the league to sponsor multiple outdoor games on the same day. The broacaster artfully deflected. It’s a pretty serious logistical challenge for the league getting one game carried off successfully, let one a double- or, as this blogger suggested, even a triple-header. And let’s face it, the league has a real, real good thing going with this game, and it strikes me that there’d have to be some dilution of the event’s novelty the moment it’d be commodotized in multiple-game fashion.
I asked two questions of Olczyk: first, I shared with him what I termed the discouraging ban on outdoor skating so commonly seen in the Midatlantic region, attributable, I suggsted, to “liability considerations.” The killjoy bureaucrats in our local jurisdictions wouldn’t sanction a pond skate if hell froze over. So I asked, could he envision a role, potentially, for the NHL to play in educating state and local governments about the virtues of this outdoor recreation, emphasizing first and foremost the safety required of it but stressing too its notable health benefits? Olczyk fairly lept up to lead the cause.
“I would offer my help to lobby, to teach and to educate [about it],” he replied. He specifically referenced the conspicuous emptiness of America’s neighborhood baseball fields and wondered, why couldn’t such spaces for instance be used for outdoor hockey in winter?
I also went even more parochial on Eddie O, and referenced the Caps coming up short to the Flyers for the Winter Classic this January 1. I noted the Capitals’ eye-catching TV ratings on Versus this season, their success in the standings, and asked if he thought it was a slam-dunk that the Caps would be in the game “sooner rather than later.”
“That’s as guaranteed as you’re gonna get,” he replied.
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