Tahoe Game Represents Return to Hockey Roots for Golden Knights

In its purest form, hockey is played in the open air on a frozen pond or outdoor rink with players in mis-matched jerseys and jackets. There's no opening faceoff; usually whoever supplied the pucks will get the first rush on offense.
Goalies are often optional. There's no game clock. The only times an intermission happens is when it's time to warm up your toes or the ice needs a shoveling. There's no crowd save for the parents watching with hot chocolate in hand.

When the puck is dropped between the Vegas Golden Knights and Colorado Avalanche at Lake Tahoe on Feb. 20, there will be a lot of parallels drawn to those magical moments when young players put their love of the game ahead of the temperature of their toes.
The NHL Outdoors series played in Northern Nevada represents a unique return to the days that players like Marc-Andre Fleury and Mark Stone remember so fondly.
"We pretty much had seven or eight outdoor rinks within walking distance from us growing up," Stone said. "My brother, Michael, and I would spend a crazy amount of time out there. There was a little hut so you could go in there, throw your skates on, head out for three or four hours, freeze your toes, go back in, warm up, and then head back out."
Growing up in Manitoba, Stone would see nothing but the white snow and his own breath as he'd skate up and down the outdoor ice honing his craft. Makeshift boards lined with fencing and chicken wire would keep pucks in play. Team practices were often held outside where ice time was easier to come by.
Those were the memories that came to Stone when he marched out to the ice at Lansdowne Park in Ottawa when he played in the NHL 100 Classic in 2017 as a member of the Ottawa Senators. Chicken wire was replaced by NHL glass and visions of fields of snow were replaced by more than 30,000 fans as Stone helped Ottawa to a 3-0 win against the Montreal Canadiens.
Though the nature of the game was different than the four-hour showdowns on the outdoor rinks surrounding Winnipeg, Stone found the temperature to be consistent with those early outdoor hockey memories.
"Once the sun went down, we walked out for warmups in the dark and it was pretty cold," Stone said. "We were lucky to have heated benches or else I don't think we could have played."
Stone laughed as he added, "I felt bad for the goalies."
Goalies, of course, stand between the pipes for the duration of the game and experience the cold for the longest stretches before escaping to the heated benches during stops in play. As a kid, Fleury combatted the extra cold that goalies experience by not playing goalie at all.
"I was mostly a forward," Fleury said. "I feel like street hockey and winter hockey I was always playing forward. I just always loved hockey growing up. I love playing goalie obviously, but I loved playing forward and making plays to try to score goals."
Fleury often enjoyed outdoor hockey sessions at his uncle's house next door where a rink was built with spotlights to keep the game going as late as possible.
"I was pretty fortunate that my uncle was my neighbor. He built a pretty good-sized rink," Fleury said. "Usually, my cousins and my friends would gather there after school. We had lights because it gets dark pretty quick. We'd play until my mom yelled at me to come in for dinner. If we didn't have school the next day, we'd go back out after dinner and play all night. It's cold but if you dress up warm and get skating around, you stay warm even if it's pretty cold outside."
Stone's first memory of outdoor NHL hockey was the alumni game played between the Montreal Canadiens and Edmonton Oilers ahead of the first regular season outdoor game at the 2003 Heritage Classic. That was the only game of its kind until the NHL went all-in on outdoor hockey starting with the 2008 NHL Winter Classic between the Buffalo Sabres and Pittsburgh Penguins.
Though Fleury was a member of that Penguins team, he was out with an injury and watched from afar as Sidney Crosby skated through the snow to net the shootout-winning goal for Pittsburgh.
"It was snowing pretty hard, I bet the people cleaning the ice had a tough time," Fleury said. "To have so many people at the game was pretty incredible. It was a good show. Max Talbot and I were injured, so we got to through a few snowballs at the mascots. I just really enjoyed it as a fan. It was a nice day."
Fleury didn't have a chance to throw snowballs in 2011 when he manned the Pittsburgh net at Heinz Field for the NHL's fourth Winter Classic. Though the Penguins fell to the Washington Capitals on that rainy evening, Fleury still looks back on that event with a smile as he enjoyed the spectacle of the game with his teammates. It isn't the result that matters for the goaltender as he looks back - it's the memories that last.
Stone and Fleury will be part of the Golden Knights' first experience with outdoor hockey since joining the NHL in 2017. Though young players in Southern Nevada are unlikely to have the experience of playing on a frozen pond or lake, the game serves as a celebration of the sport for all hockey fans.
"I'm really excited," Stone said. "I think it's going to be one of our highlights for the year. I've never actually been to Tahoe, but I've heard it's one of the coolest places you can go. It's going to be different without the crowd of 80,000 people, but it's going to bring us back a bit more to when we were younger playing on the outdoor rinks."