St. Louis Blues defenseman Colton Parayko will keep a blog throughout the Discover NHL Winter Classic. The Blues will face the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday at Wrigley Field (5 p.m. ET; MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS).
In his first entry, Parayko discusses playing in the Winter Classic for the third time and his one and only experience of being at the home of the Chicago Cubs, along with staying in the moment and not looking too far ahead to the game until it actually arrives.
It's special, obviously. I've played in some really cool spots. Obviously here at Busch Stadium and Target Field in Minnesota was really cool, really cold. And now at Wrigley. Three Winter Classics. They're just special for players and coaches and management and staff, families even come down. A bunch of my family and everybody else's is probably going to be there. My mom, my brother and my little sister will be there. My best friend from college, he'll be there as well. I'm excited. They're just exciting, and I love them.
I've been to Wrigley one time when I was playing with the Chicago Wolves in the American Hockey League with one of the guys there, we decided to show up for a ballgame and we went and it was good. It would have been in 2014, 2015, I can't even remember. I just remember the seats. We had the first row, four seats beside the dugout. It was unreal. It was really cool.
You could tell it has a lot of history. I think we were Googling today actually when it was built. I think it was 1914, and Fenway Park in Boston was only two years before, I think 1912. That was pretty cool to see.
There's so much history, just the players that have gone through there -- Cubs and also away players that have come and played through there.
You know it's there, but obviously we're focusing game by game. Honestly, I think it kind of creeped up on us. It's not that you don't forget about it, but you are focusing daily and all of a sudden it's just, 'Whoop, here we are.'
One game away and afterwards we're heading to Chicago. It's exciting and I'm looking forward to it.
