Dreams come true in first episode of EPIX series

Dreams are why we love sports. The dream of watching, the dream of playing, the dream of seeing a team to which we have dedicated our hearts and souls winning a game, a playoff round, a championship. The beauty is in the small dreams writ large: The local kid finding himself scoring a goal in his hometown rink or holding a Stanley Cup, won with his hometown team, in front of his hometown fans.
That is where we go with EPIX in the latest edition of
"Road to the NHL Outdoor Classics."
The series debuts Friday and will feature an inside look at the month leading up to two outdoor games: The 2017 Scotiabank NHL Centennial Classic between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Detroit Red Wings at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto on Jan. 1, and the 2017 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic between the St. Louis Blues and Chicago Blackhawks at Busch Stadium in St. Louis on Jan. 2.

Those games are dreams too, a big-star, big-kid version of the ponds that dotted the childhoods of many of the players who will careen around the outdoor ice, the roaring in their imaginations translated into the real-life roaring of the crowds.

We start with the story of the Blackhawks' Scott Darling, the goaltender who would have been content with one NHL game but who now has played in 56 of them and has not lost the appreciation for the fantasy he is living. Or his sense of humor.
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"I'm surprised you want me to depreciate it, putting my signature on there," he says while being asked to sign a Patrick Kane jersey at a Blackhawks holiday event for season ticket holders.
It's a self-deprecating sentiment lost on the children who look at him with veneration, overjoyed to simply stand next to him while posing for pictures, basking a little bit in the glow.
We see that reflected back later when forward Andrew Desjardins visits a Chicago fire station with his wife and son, when the awe with which children usually look at hockey players is evident in the eyes of 2-year-old Ames when he's around the firefighters and their equipment. There is, perhaps, a dream there too.
We see the dream of spirits raised in a downtrodden Detroit, a sense of a community coming together under a coach born in the city and raised in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. We see Jeff Blashill, someone who understands just how his team can fill in the holes, even if briefly, for a city waiting for a resurgence.
In a lighter moment, we see the dream of a well-decorated house while visiting with Red Wings forwards Dylan Larkin and Luke Glendening as they try (with some success) to get the holiday lights strung just so and their stockings hung with care.
We see a dream of a Stanley Cup championship 50 years in the making as the Blues inch closer to a title at the same time that a 20-year NHL coaching career nears its end. Ken Hitchcock has said this will be his final season as an NHL coach, giving him one more chance for a second championship to go with the one he won back in 1999 with the Dallas Stars.
"You start to think about how hard it was to get there, and then how are you going to find that energy to go through it again," he says. "I think that's the key to starting a new season: Can you reconnect to new energy?"
We see the dream of a new era in Toronto, of a new crop of Maple Leafs hoping to raise a team that, for so long, has disappointed a city at the center of the hockey world.

We see a game-winner by a local child in a visiting rink, the joy of friends and family in the stands, the highest hopes of a kid lighting up the face of an adult. We see the anticipation, and the stress, of making it to June, and of making it through December first. We see work and family and hopes realized and dashed and injury struggles and teams coming together and unguarded moments along the way.
We hear harsh words unleashed by Red Wings captain Henrik Zetterberg in a closed-door meeting as he sees a dream possibly slipping away.
Ultimately, as the show reminds us, this will culminate in January with these players featured on the biggest stages of the regular season. But before we get there, we get to see them, as narrator Bill Camp says, "Continue their exploration of what the game has in store for them."
And what it has in store for us too.