Foligno, Vlasic get swings in at Wrigley Field ahead of Discover NHL Winter Classic

CHICAGO – Nick Foligno was feeling like a kid again at Wrigley Field.

The Chicago Blackhawks forward, along with defenseman Alex Vlasic, was getting a tour of the Chicago Cubs clubhouse with “a child athlete I adored and admired,” former Cubs pitcher Ryan Dempster, who also worked a little batting practice with them.

“Not bad until I hit him,” Foligno said of getting Dempster in the hip with a line drive during indoor batting practice at Wrigley Field on Wednesday, where preparations continue for the Discover NHL Winter Classic between the Blackhawks and St. Louis Blues on Dec. 31 (5 p.m. ET; MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS).

“He’s a trooper about it. I have to say he’s hockey-player tough, the way he handled that.”

It was an enjoyable day for Foligno, his daughter Milana and son Landon, Vlasic and Dempster, who finished their tour by hitting the field itself to see the latest progress entering the Winter Classic. The Wrigley infield and outfield is now completely covered with armor deck. Crews were in the midst of putting down the plywood for the stage on which the ice rink will be built.

“It looks great,” Vlasic said of the current setup. “It's kind of hard to envision what it's all going to look like right now, there's not too much up. But it's cool to see how big the field is in comparison to a hockey rink. You think a hockey rink is so big, and then you get out here and the baseball field makes it look tiny.”

The Blackhawks are hosting their second Winter Classic at Wrigley, having played the Detroit Red Wings there on Jan. 1, 2009, a 6-4 win for Detroit. This will mark the second time the NHL has held the Winter Classic more than once in the same park. The 2010 and 2023 editions were played at Fenway Park in Boston.

It's also the first Winter Classic to be played on New Year’s Eve.

Dempster, who played for the Cubs from 2004-12, has been a game analyst and studio host with Marquee Sports Network, television flagship of the Cubs, since its launch in 2020. A native of Gibsons, British Columbia, he was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2019.

There’s a whole lot of Chicago in Dempster, who was here for the 2009 Winter Classic and is looking forward to this one.

“This is so special,” he said. “We were talking about that beforehand. To be able to host a hockey game outside, where these guys, that’s their life. They all played on a pond somewhere at some point, an outdoor rink, they’ve all done it. To bring them full circle back in a moment like this, in a place like Wrigley (is great).

“I was here in 2009 for the game. I sat right up there behind home plate behind the upper deck, and I can’t wait to see it again on New Year’s Eve. It’s special. There are very few places that are iconic like Wrigley, like Fenway Park. To do it here is just going to be so much fun.”

The current forecast for Dec. 31 in Wrigleyville, the neighborhood that’s home to the ballpark, is cloudy and 38 degrees. That would be slightly warmer than it was Wednesday, near 32 degrees, and Vlasic was fine with that.

“It’s perfect right now. I was just thinking that. This is perfect,” he said. “So hopefully it stays like this.”

Wrigley has been a place of many memories throughout the years. Foligno and Vlasic got to enjoy a bit of a hockey-baseball crossover on Wednesday and will look to make more memories with the Blackhawks at the ballpark in about two weeks.

“The game of hockey provides so many great opportunities and experiences and this is one of them,” Foligno said. “I got to meet a childhood athlete that I adored and admired in Ryan Dempster and to have him take us through the place he made famous and was famous is pretty awesome.

“This is such a storied franchise (Cubs), the Blackhawks are such a storied franchise that it’s really special to mend the two and have this event and we’re thrilled to be here.”