Blues, Red Wings to meet in 106-year-old rink

The St. Louis Blues will meet the Detroit Red Wings for a preseason game on Thursday at 6 p.m. CT in the oldest in-use indoor ice rink in the world.
The 700-seat Calumet Colosseum in Calumet, Michigan - which first opened its doors in 1913 - will host the game after earning the designation as Kraft Hockeyville USA in April.

In conjunction with Kraft Heinz, the NHL and the NHLPA, the Kraft Hockeyville initiative allows fans to vote for a community they think is the most-spirited hockey community in America. After receiving the most votes online, Calumet received $150,000 to use for rink upgrades and an additional $10,000 in hockey equipment from the NHLPA Goals and Dreams program. The icing on the cake, though, is the opportunity to host Thursday's preseason contest, which will be nationally-televised on NBC Sports Network and streaming on the NBC Sports App.

"All these small communities that are huge hockey communities, hockey's kind of a way of life there and it's cool that they get a game in," Ryan O'Reilly told NHL.com. O'Reilly played in a Kraft Hockeyville game with the Buffalo Sabres in 2016. "It allows us to see a part of the country that we never really get a chance to. It's really cool.
"I think it's a great job they do," O'Reilly added. "It helps promote the game and I know as a kid, if that happened around me, it would be pretty amazing to see NHL guys come there to play. It's a great thing they put on."
Through the money it received for rink upgrades, the Colosseum now has an entirely new ice plant, a new heating system, new sound system and refurbished locker rooms.

"It's phenomenal. Everybody's talking about Hockeyville and this rink," manager Mark Peters told NHL.com. "Everyone in this community has a smile on their face. We're really excited for this."
The Blues previously played the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Kraft Hockeyville USA game back in 2017. The Rostraver Ice Garden in Belle Vernon, PA was selected as the winner but the rink was not fit to host the game. Instead, the teams played at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex in Cranberry. The Blues beat the Penguins, 4-1.