Hockey Day Minnesota

Another great event is upon us, Hockey Day Minnesota. This special day, which features 20 consecutive hours of non-stop hockey coverage on FSN, takes place this Saturday starting at 9:00 AM and raps up with a tape-delayed Houston Aeros game in the early hours on Sunday. In between fans will be able to watch 3 high-school games, a Wild game, and finally a University of Minnesota Golden Gopher game. Check the end of this entry for the complete schedule.

So I starting thinking about this event and more specifically the high-school match-ups, simply because I believe that two of them are the most intriguing because they will be played outdoors. And because the NHL's Winter Classic is fresh in my mind, it begged the question, what is the fascination of playing hockey in the dead cold when there are so many community ice arenas around? After all, I'm in my 40's and I recall playing only 2 seasons on outdoor ice and that was when I was very young. So I am pretty sure that all of the current high-school players played zero games of organized hockey outdoors. As for the NHL'ers, I can only assume that there are not many who grew up playing organized hockey under the open sky in the chilling winter months. Or maybe I cannot assume these things...A few years back, Sports Illustrated ran a story of a Minnesota prep team that still played on an outdoor rink (for the life of me I cannot recall the community that was in). Plus, the NHL is made up of players from all around the world and I am not about to assume or even guess how or where they played the game growing up. So I guess the best way to do this piece is to go by my own experiences.

Simply put, the intrigue and fascination of playing hockey outdoors can be stated by saying that there is nothing like it. The sound that is created when you are out on the ice in dead of night is simply magical. The blades of your freshly sharpened skates cutting through the frozen ice is a sound that cannot be described. Passing the puck from tape to tape, that hard cracking sound is unbelievable. And there is no way to replicate the sound of a puck hitting the boards or the sound of it makes when it sails over the boards and into the snow bank...yes, that really makes a sound. The way your toes froze up to the point that you could not feel them, but if they were hit with the frozen puck, the pain was unbearable. You think that walking to and from you car in a minus degree windchill is cold, try skating for an hour with that same breeze. And the infamous warming house. How great was it to run into that square wooden building with your teammates to drink some warm fluids.

These are just a few memories that I have of my youth when I first started playing hockey as a squirt. If you have not done it, have a skate outdoors at your local rink, you will not be disappointed!

• 9AM Hockey Day Minnesota
• 10AM Rochester J.M. vs. St Paul Johnson Phalen Park, St Paul
• 1PM White Bear Lake vs. Duluth East Xcel Energy Center
• 5PM University of Minnesota vs. St Cloud State NHC, St. Cloud
• 8PM Minnesota Wild vs. Anaheim Ducks Xcel Energy Center
• 11PM Minnetonka vs. Stillwater (girls) Phalen Park, St. Paul
• 1:30AM Toronto Marlies vs. Houston Aeros Houston, Texas