2nd Outdoor Game...way to screw up Bettman...AGAIN.

Total overkill of a good thing. Leave it alone. One game is enough.

Total overkill of a good thing. Leave it as the one big event.

Bettman could have head this off at the pass by at least including one of the Canadien teams, oh I dunno, say at Fenway against the Bruins. So now a double header. It was bound to happen anyway. No such thing as too much of a good thing. It'll be three sooner or later and it will be like Hockey Day in Canada. It'll still be a great event and a Canada-centric version is a good nod to the origins of the sport. It has obviously piqued curiosity for the casual fan. This is the same fan that watches 3 NFL games on Thanksgiving no matter how ****ty the match-ups are. So hopefully it will help grow the sport. I do not agree with Herr Bettman often and it pains me to say...I have no problem with this.

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Originally Posted by taz42

Total overkill of a good thing. Leave it alone. One game is enough.

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Originally Posted by taz42

Total overkill of a good thing. Leave it as the one big event.

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Good one!

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Originally Posted by jerseydevil

Bettman could have head this off at the pass by at least including one of the Canadien teams, oh I dunno, say at Fenway against the Bruins. So now a double header. It was bound to happen anyway. No such thing as too much of a good thing. It'll be three sooner or later and it will be like Hockey Day in Canada. It'll still be a great event and a Canada-centric version is a good nod to the origins of the sport. It has obviously piqued curiosity for the casual fan. This is the same fan that watches 3 NFL games on Thanksgiving no matter how ****ty the match-ups are. So hopefully it will help grow the sport. I do not agree with Herr Bettman often and it pains me to say...I have no problem with this.

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Would've loved to have seen Bruins/Habs at Fenway, and absolutely agree this could've been avoided by not having the first 6 teams represented all being American. That said, don't mind having the second outdoor game, though if there is going to be one in Canada every year, I hope they'll look outside the Canadian team/Canadian team set-up after the first couple or it'll lose the novelty even faster.

Yankee Stadium will be the next venue, and most likely both New York teams play against eachother. If were lucky, we'll see a few teams west of Chicago around 2012, but it really won't matter because that's when the world ends.

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Originally Posted by Dr. Naysay

I love Canada just as much as the next Canadian... but there's only 30 Million people in Canada and only 6 NHL teams.

The Winter Classic is the one thing the NHL has kind of stumbled on that's really great. Milking it for every possible penny right off the bat is an "American" thing to do.

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All true, AND you also just proved my point.

The thing is, you could have an out door classic everyday in Canada and Canadians wouldn't get tired.

Canadians are like the fat chick at the bar who you know you could pick up, while Americans are the hottie that will shoot you down every time. Bettman needs to just settle (or die) to get the game really going.

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Originally Posted by darby

Have you guys not been paying attention lately?

Gary Bettman has been saying ANYTHING in order to keep Canadian fans happy.

He's also mentioned the possibility of expansion in the wake of the Ballsille mess in order to appease Canadians who were hoping to get their hands on the Coyotes. And now he's saying what he needs to say about the Classic.

With the Canadian dollar doing what it's doing against our dollar, it's the revenue coming in from north of the border that's semi-artificially boosting the numbers, thereby keeping the salary cap higher. And as long as he can sell that point to anyone who will listen, it's his case to keep all the teams where they are because "the league is doing fine!"

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There's nothing semi-artificially about it, it's the way it IS.

I'll watch it. There's no such thing as too much hockey.

I think they could pull off a 'Classic' each year for each nation with NHL franchises. I remember how little actual coverage the first one in Edmonton received here in the states. Most casual fans would probably still think the one in Boston/New York/Philadelphia (expect a rotation similar to this) is the ONLY one anyways.