Pastrnak pays homage to Red Sox, Ortiz with Winter Classic equipment

BOSTON - The hockey sticks are a particular shade of green, a color that looms large over Fenway Park, from the Green Monster to the bleachers to the dugouts. David Pastrnak wanted it that way, yet another demonstration of the Boston Bruins forward's attention to style and detail.

At Notre Dame, for the 2019 Winter Classic, Pastrnak helped designed a stick bearing shamrocks, yard markers from a football field, the Notre Dame logo and Boston skyline, in addition to his trademark pasta emoji.
This time, for the 2023 Discover NHL Winter Classic against the Pittsburgh Penguins at Fenway Park on Monday (2 p.m. ET; TNT, TVAS, SN), the theme is a lot less football and a lot more baseball. Which makes sense for a game in one of the most storied ballparks in the country.
"I did it the last [time], Notre Dame," Pastrnak said. "Obviously the stick was more detailed this year. I'm happy with how it came out. I think it's pretty awesome. It's a special event, so I think it's the perfect timing to make a little different thing."

For this year's event, the Winter Classic logo features prominently within the green of the Bauer stick, along with nods to the city of Prague in his native Czech Republic. The hand-operated Green Monster scoreboard runs along the side, as does the baseball stitching that is also replicated on his custom skates.
Pastrnak's favorite part, he said, is a reference to David Ortiz, the legendary Boston Red Sox slugger who was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2022. On the stick, a shadow figure of Ortiz is pointing to the sky, as he did after home runs during his career, with the No. 34 and his name.
"My favorite thing is, can't forget about the Red Sox legend, 'Big Papi'," Pastrnak said in a video about the gear posted by the Bruins. "We've got David Ortiz here. Hopefully he's not going to be mad and bring me some luck."
And, of course, there's the pasta emoji.
"I pretty much told them what I want there, and the designers did a great job to put it out there," Pastrnak said. "It didn't take many tries and I was happy with what I saw. Excited."
The skates might be even more eye-popping, with white heels that transition into green with baseball stitching between the two colors. That green again features the Fenway scoreboard.
Pastrnak isn't the only one honoring Ortiz in his gear. Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman, who will back up Linus Ullmark, has tributes to Red Sox greats Ortiz, Ted Williams and Curt Schilling on his custom mask for the event.
Pastrnak is playing in his third outdoor game, after also participating in the NHL Outdoors at Lake Tahoe on Feb. 21, 2021, scoring a hat trick to lead the Bruins over the Philadelphia Flyers, 7-3, and at the Winter Classic at Notre Dame, a 4-2 win against the Chicago Blackhawks.

On Sunday, as the Bruins practiced on the Fenway Park ice, Pastrnak was taken back to his childhood, playing on the one outdoor rink in his hometown of Havirov, Czech Republic. He remembered at Christmas going to play on a lake that was just a little too far away - "a long walk carrying all the skates and sticks."
"You go play on the lake and you hope that it's cold enough that the whole lake is frozen," Pastrnak said. "It definitely brings you back and even the practices, just outdoors, feeling the wind coming in your face. It's definitely something special. It's a little throwback to the history, that's how the game started, outdoors."
And he got a chance to take the ice with his mom, Marcela Ziembova, who came in for the game.
"That was amazing. I just told my mom, give her tons of credit because she raised a [heck] of a hockey player, but she can't even skate," Pastrnak said, laughing.
But though his mom might not be the surest of foot on ice skates, Pastrnak feels about the same with a baseball bat in his hands.
"I've never swung the bat before," Pastrnak said. "I did go out there today and tried it. I went 1-for-1, so I finished on the top. I made contact. I think I would get to first base, no problem. I think I'd be good at stealing a base, too."
He turned then and looked at the locker stall he was sitting in front of in the Red Sox locker room.
"I think it's J.D. [Martinez's] stall," he said. "Hopefully I've got a couple home runs tomorrow."