Winter Classic at Fenway stirs memories of 1st outdoor game in Boston
Oral history of how snow, ballpark made 2010 game between Bruins, Flyers one for the ages
But Craig, who retired on Oct. 31, 2021, as the NHL vice president of facilities operation, can't get that cold out of his mind - or his body. He jokes, "My feet are still frozen."
When the NHL started thinking about Fenway Park as a venue for the third edition of its nascent Winter Classic - after the inaugural event in 2008 at Buffalo's Ralph Wilson Stadium and the 2009 follow-up at Chicago's Wrigley Field - Craig and his team felt like they were ready.
They knew the pitfalls of conducting an outdoor event, and the quirks of fitting a hockey game into an ancient ballpark. They had built out the infrastructure, including a self-designed aluminum floor that was supposed to help in case the temperatures got up into the 50s.
Former NHL vice president of facilities operations Dan Craig and his team spray hot water on the ice at chilly Fenway Park ahead of the 2010 Winter Classic.
What it wasn't designed for was the teens, the bitter cold that left Craig and his ice team scrambling with gallons of hot water and a heavy dose of prayer.
"It was a learning curve for everybody," he said.
But the 2010 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic between the Philadelphia Flyers and Boston Bruins, held on Jan. 1, 2010, at the iconic ballpark in Boston was also magical.
"With the whole Winter Classic, Stadium Series, one of the things I always wanted to do was share," Craig said, tearing up. "When you're there, all you want to do is share the experience with the people. Take people for a ride. That's what it's about. It's about making people better, taking them and saying, you want to know what it's like to be in front of 50,000 people? This is what you'd want.
"And you take as many of the people around the League as you can and just share the experience. Share the experience as best you can."
Craig and the NHL arrived early that year, pulling the refrigeration truck down Van Ness Street on Dec. 10, ready to get cracking on an event that would test even the world's foremost ice-building crew.
"That's how we attacked every event: Think outside the box," Craig said. "Mother Nature is going to win. It doesn't matter how hard you fight."
They are fighting that very same fight again this year, bringing the Winter Classic back to a venue for the first time, taking on Fenway yet again for the 2023 Discover NHL Winter Classic between the Boston Bruins and the Pittsburgh Penguins on Jan. 2 (2 p.m. ET; TNT, TVAS, SN), the memories still warm from the last iteration.
"It was awesome," said Washington Capitals coach Peter Laviolette, who coached the Flyers in the 2010 Winter Classic, and who is from Franklin, Massachusetts. "Fenway Park had so much history to it. It still does. To be able to play a hockey game inside of Fenway Park, [having] grown up watching the Bruins and watching the Red Sox and to mix the two sports and bring it into Fenway Park was pretty cool.
"It was a great, great day. A great hockey game."
But, as then-Flyers forward Danny Briere recalled, it was also so much more.
"It's an event," Briere said. "It's not just a hockey game."
Here's an oral history of the 2010 Winter Classic at Fenway Park.
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The first Impressions
Dean Matsuzaki, executive vice president, NHL Events: Fenway was our third Winter Classic. We had played the game in Buffalo at Ralph Wilson Stadium and from there we went to Wrigley Field. When the discussions of Wrigley Field became public and we announced that game, it was soon after that the folks at Fenway were like, "What about us?"
Sam Kennedy, president and CEO of the Red Sox: We have an incredibly close relationship with [Bruins owners] Charlie and Jeremy Jacobs. They alerted us that there might be an opportunity to do the Winter Classic in Boston at Fenway and I think before they got the words out of their mouths, it was, "Yes. We're in."
Doc Emrick, NBC broadcaster:I thought it was magical that it was going to take place there. When we went into Buffalo, there was an uncertainty within a week of the game whether it would sell out or not. And I don't think the League or NBC or any of us, really, understood this would become the magical thing that it did. But of course, by the time the snow globe effect was done, and the shootout was over and we were in the parking lot, we thought, shoot, this is going to be great. The next year, they came up with Wrigley Field. Then I thought, well, we know what's coming after this.
Matsuzaki: We started talking in earnest with them and soon it all started to fall into place from there.
Kennedy: (laughing) We were not great negotiators because we were so desperate to have it.
Briere: It was like, oh my God, we're going to play at Fenway Park, one of the most iconic baseball stadiums.
Chris Pronger, Flyers defenseman: Two iconic franchises.
Laviolette was officially hired as Flyers coach Dec. 4, a mere three weeks before the New Year's Day game.
Laviolette: It was one of those ones where you're excited to get to work and then when you look down the schedule, you're like, "Oh, man. There's a bonus there."
Matsuzaki: This was the first time I believe Fenway had really done a capacity, outdoor, winter event and our first meeting with them was actually a little, uh, interesting. When the groundskeeper came in and laid out the rules and regs about the field, it was like, uh, ok, then. I don't know if this is going to work.
David Mellor, Senior Director of Grounds at Fenway Park: I wanted to know about frost going down in the ground. I wanted to make sure we were protecting the infield clay.
Matsuzaki: They said, no, no, no, we want to make this work. Sure enough, we figured it all out.
Mellor:They were just fantastic to work with, and they put down temperature sensors underneath the rink to be able to show me daily temperatures, to make sure the frost was not diving down under the rink, to make sure that the field was protected. They also had pressure sensors in the glycol lines, to show me there were not glycol leaks happening daily, so they had control of that and also control of the glycol when it was coming out of the system. They were just incredibly thorough, communication was great.
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The build
Matsuzaki: We came in and built the rink quite early in December. … We lived there for a month.
Craig:Fenway, it wasn't going to be a whole lot different than what we faced in Chicago because of it being an older stadium. But the challenge - and I think my feet are still frozen - was that the back area where we had to do our work was not heated very well because that ballpark is not winterized at the back end very well.
Matsuzaki: Always with outdoor games, [it's] weather, weather, weather.
Craig:We hit nights where we were down to single digits. And we did not have a heater in the floor, which meant that the ice got very brittle. And when you put water on it, it would crack wide open in the morning. So even before breakfast, a crew of six would go out there, pull the hose out and get as much hot water as we could and just make that whole ice sheet snap, crackle and pop. We would put down gallons of hot water and it would be frozen in five minutes.
Chie Chie Yard, group vice president, NHL Events: The [problem was the] age of the stadium.
A member of Dan Craig's crew helps construct the rink at Fenway Park for the 2010 Winter Classic.
Matsuzaki:Such an old venue. There are a lot of unique characteristics for an old ballpark. But that's part of the charm. Always with the outdoor games, weather is a big thing. But also the age of the stadium. There is no event level in that stadium - whereas most modern stadiums have a whole underground concourse to get from A to B and a service corridor. At Fenway Park, what you see is what you get.
Briere:We were told that we had to be open-minded, that it was an older stadium. But I don't think we cared too much about the facilities.
Matsuzaki: There's a gentleman at the ballpark named Donnie [facilities superintendent Donnie Gardiner] and he basically sealed the whole lower concourse, boarding up the ends and blowing heat in to keep everything warm for us. He basically created a template for how they do things now for their bowl games and this year's Winter Classic. They kind of winterize in that fashion every year now.
On December 20, a massive snowstorm hit the Northeast, dropping 10 inches on the Boston area.
Matsuzaki:The lasting memory for that year's Winter Classic was the snow. We all try to sneak home for Christmas, especially with Boston being so close New York. But that year, we had to change plans to get back early because our rink was buried in snow and we were having to clear snow out of the stadium, shoveling, and doing everything we could to get the rink clear.
Ice crews shovel snow off the rink at Fenway Park for the 2010 Winter Classic
Mellor: We dealt with some snow challenges. We had a situation where one gentleman fell asleep with a snow-making machine. … They said no one wants to see green grass for one of these events, right? So they said, hey, should we put down, like, a white felt over the grass or should we bring in somebody to make snow? And we ended up doing it that way. I said my biggest concern about somebody making snow is I just don't want somebody to fall asleep and have all this snow - obviously it's an icy-type [of] heavy wet snow. Just so they don't fall asleep and [have] it all go on one area. They say, no, that won't happen. This will be the best snow maker there is. I said, OK, that sounds good. Then I left late and came in the next morning and sure enough, that person fell asleep. Big pile of snow on top of the two big NHL team logos out in left field.
Matsuzaki, via email: At the time, it was told wind carried the snow on the team logos.
Craig:We ended up with a big snowstorm that went through there [and] we spent the whole entire day - from 7 in the morning until 5 p.m. There was supposed to be some youth hockey on the rink at 4 and I remember [then-NHL executive vice president, events] Don Renzulli coming to me and saying, they're here now. And I said, "Don't you dare bring those kids out here."
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The run-up
When the Flyers arrived in Boston for the Winter Classic, they were 19-18-2, fourth in the Atlantic Division and had won four straight games; the Bruins were 20-12-7 and second in the Northeast. On Dec. 31, the day before the game, each team got to test out the ice at practices and family skates. Two more inches of snow dusted the ice, leaving Bruins coach Claude Julien to push a shovel along the ice to help clear it during the Bruins practice.
Briere:To this day, that outdoor family skate, with the snow coming down, is probably - I wouldn't say it's the highlight of my career - but it's definitely one of my favorite memories of my career. Having friends and family there, being on the ice with my parents, my kids, a couple of my best friends. That was probably the highlight of that whole event.
Flyers forward Danny Briere said the 2010 Winter Classic wasn't just a hockey game, 'It's an event.'
Zdeno Chara, Bruins defenseman: Stepping for the first time on the outdoor ice at Fenway felt absolutely amazing. Such a historic and iconic stadium.
Briere:I still have goosebumps just talking about it.
Mark Recchi, Bruins forward: We had a light snow, so we didn't get to practice a ton. But it was great being out there, being in Fenway, seeing the setup. And getting your family out to skate is really special times.
Briere: My mom and dad used to build an outdoor rink in my backyard. Those were the memories that it brought back.
Some borderline roster players on the Flyers and Bruins were left hoping they would make the cut in the final days leading up to the game. Defenseman Adam McQuaid, who would go on to play 462 of his 512 NHL games with the Bruins and win Stanley Cup in 2011 with them, was then only three games into his NHL career and a healthy scratch for the Winter Classic.
McQuaid: I was just happy to be there. I got called up like mid-December. I was just counting down the days, hoping I could stay to be around. Getting to do the practice, I got to take warmups. My family all came in. It was just gravy to be there. The cherry on top.
Danny Syvret, Flyers defenseman: I had gotten called up just after Christmas. I started the season up top, then was sent down to the Phantoms [of the American Hockey League], then went home to my parents' place for Christmas. I think when some of the guys up top came back from Christmas break, they had either injured themselves or were unable to play. I was an emergency call up.
Once practice began, players, staff and media tried to acclimate to their new surroundings, while taking in the unusual sights.
Recchi: Me and a lot of guys were talking, oh, these are the views that are going to be great here. These are going to be not so good. Guys were talking like that, having some fun with that. Hoping our families are over there because those are the best spots.
Scott Hartnell, Flyers forward:We practiced for probably 40 minutes, just to get a feel. Your depth perception was a lot different when it's outside and you've got the Green Monster in the background … We're trying to fire pucks to see if we can get anywhere close to the Green Monster. Everybody failed at that one.
Emrick: Fortunately, there was that day before the Winter Classic game when I could wander around and I could look at the red seat in right field that Ted Williams hit and I could go in and tour the scoreboard.
Fans watch the 2010 Winter Classic from their seats above the Green Monster at Fenway Park.
Craig: When you walk the Green Monster every single day, you have a respect for that wall. Like, that is a Green Monster. It is. And we took the time to make sure all the crew got up there and stood inside all the areas right above there, those little bar tops up there, making sure our crew took time. Because we're on ground level. We have to get up there so we get to understand what everybody gets to see and what they get to feel when they look from that view down to us.
Emrick:I noticed all the signatures [in the scoreboard]. It's just laced with signatures. I was encouraged not to add mine, which I did not do, out of respect.
Kennedy:Whoever told him that should be fired immediately.
Emrick: There's a place in left field right near the foul pole where you can go down below. Down below there, I spotted [Flyers forward] Danny Carcillo doing some wind sprints before he was going to get his time out on the field. And he was very forward about the fact that there had never been a fight in a Winter Classic game. He was calculating that, I think. And, of course, the next afternoon he fought Shawn Thornton.
That wasn't the only time fighting came up that day.
Kennedy: I was fortunate to play in a practice warmup to test the ice with a bunch of Bruins alums. And given my horrible skating skills, I accidentally leveled Ray Bourque and knocked him flat on his back. People were like, what the hell is that tall skinny guy doing to Ray Bourque. He'd just received a pass and I couldn't stop myself and I slammed right into him. [Former Bruins player] Jay Miller, unbeknownst to me was right behind me watching this thing, came over and jumped on me and started slamming my head into the ice. Like, who are you and what the hell is wrong with you? Ray Bourque has held that over my head to this day.
The Flyers and Bruins drop the puck on the 2010 Winter Classic at Fenway Park
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Gameday
Kennedy:The last point [in the negotiation] was snow insurance because it's really expensive and difficult to shovel out all the seats to get the place ready. [Former NHL chief operating officer] John Collins called at 6:30 a.m. the day of the game. My cell phone rang - and it's New Year's Day after New Year's Eve - so you can imagine. And I'm like, oh god, what now? And he's like, hey Sam, is it snowing? And of course, it wasn't.
Craig: I'm sitting up in the stands and it's sunrise. I have a picture of it and I remember it distinctly, watching the sun come through the overhang over the picture of the field. And that's when you know that you're going to have an incredible, incredible day, when you can watch a sunrise over top of your rink and your rink is ready to go.
Pronger:You worry about too much snow the day of the event. But fortunately we had a light smattering before the game and then it was actually a little overcast, which is ideal conditions for an outdoor game. Everything magically aligned.
Chara: I remember it was a beautiful sunny morning.
For Craig, it was an especially poignant moment. His friend, Brian Froland, who was supposed to be with him at the Winter Classic, had died a month before the game. He made sure to include Froland in the moment.
Craig: His goalie skates are in the picture. Brian was one year ahead of us and I played hockey with Brian. Brian's wife and parents and my parents were best friends. It's one of those things that I knew that I had to do. Brian's skates were with the ice crew down on the ice crew stand.
The idea for many of the players was to try to treat it like a normal game. Before long, that proved impossible.
Chara: The police escort to Fenway Park was unreal.
Syvret: When I came out of the dugout, I hear, "Danny!" right away. I look over my shoulder and it was my older brother who had come up from Florida, flew in that morning, and he was sitting with my parents.
Briere: As my pregame ritual, I like to sit in the stands or walk around and do my visualizations that way. I remember going out and walking around. I remember the guys playing soccer to warm up in one of those cave-like rooms down below and then walking around on the field and seeing the kids playing on the smaller ice besides and walking in the outfield with my headset on, listening to music, getting ready for the game, walking by the Green Monster.
Chara: Once we were in the locker room, everyone was getting ready for the game, but we also had time to take some photos for ourselves and with Bobby Orr, Johnny Bucyk and others who came to say good luck. That was very kind of them and very humbling.
Recchi:Starting to get ready for it was unbelievable. Chief [Buyck] was around all the time, but to have Bobby come in was - he's amazing. He's an amazing person, as is Johnny Bucyk and all the alumni of the Bruins.
Hartnell: We were getting dressed in the visitor's dressing room at Fenway Park where all the old baseball greats [dressed]. Babe Ruth was in there.
Emrick: It was a magnificent-sounding crowd. They were wired up for it.
Briere:I was trying to find my parents and my kids and friends in the stadium, but I had no clue where they were. I remember scanning the crowd.
McQuaid:It was surreal. Can't believe I get to do this.
Pronger: The walk out, you're walking toward the Green Monster.
Recchi: [Orr] gets on the ice with Bobby Clarke [for the ceremonial puck drop] and Bobby Clarke's a legend as well. It's really just unbelievable when you think about it.
Current Bruins forward Charlie Coyle grew up outside Boston, in Weymouth, Mass., and was in the stands as a high school senior.
Coyle:It was as cold as anything. And you knew a bunch of people there.
Emrick:The stealth bomber comes over during the anthem and I can see it and it's right above - the thing's enormous - and it's flying low. And you can see it, but you can't hear it. Until it's on its way across and then it's deafening.
Craig:You know what's coming. But you can't hear it. Then all of a sudden, just this big shadow comes over top of the field.
Recchi:The conditions were absolutely perfect. It's like 32 degrees. It was clouded over. But it was just perfect. It was a perfect day to play hockey.
The puck dropped; the game began.
Chara:At first, we were a little nervous, as for all of us this was the first time playing an outdoor NHL game, but for sure we noticed the sunlight and sounds of the cracking ice underneath our skates once the full-speed game was on.
Hartnell: It's tough to listen to Laviolette on the chalkboard explaining a drill when your head's - you're not even looking at the board. You're looking at home plate, fans behind it. Even during the game, too, you're catching your breath after a long shift and you're like, wow, I can see my breath.
Emrick: Being positioned when we were in short center field, there was no easy access to the washroom, so we just had to get through various periods of time. And I would swig coffee to stay warm because it was cold.
Pronger: We had the heated benches. The moment you got off you're putting your hands on the bench to warm up.
Syvret: [Pronger] would have been on the ice a lot more than I would have been. It was the first time I'd ever been on [heated benches]. I'm like, jeez, this is coming through my equipment and it's hot.
Hartnell: The fans, you could hear them, but they were so far away it just felt like you were playing one vs. one on pond hockey growing up. You almost had to pinch yourself and say this is the National Hockey League, the best League in the world.
Briere:You know the fans are there, but you're kind of on an island in the middle of it. When you look through the glass, you see empty behind it. You know the fans are there, but you don't see them, and you barely hear them.
The game remained scoreless through the first period. Then, at 4:42 of the second, an unlikely player scored the first goal of the afternoon.
Syvret: It was a play off the rush. I think there was a shot on net and I was the weak-side defenseman jumping in. It squirted out to me and I just remember a Boston player coming out to block it. As a D-man in that position, I'm like, if this gets blocked, it's going the other way and it's not good. I'm already deep in the zone.
Syvret had played 43 games over four seasons entering the Winter Classic. He had three NHL assists and no goals going into the Jan. 1 game.
Syvret: I was just so fixated on getting the puck by [the forward out to block], make sure I miss those initial shinpads, that I didn't see that [Tim] Thomas had gone down on the play. If I would have elevated the puck initially, like upper half of the net, it would have been in. So Thomas was down and made the save and then I just started to retreat a bit to my position on the blue line and the puck squirted out again. I just sort of did a spinning, throw-it-on-net. Thomas was irritated with Scott Hartnell so he was more fixated on Scotty than where the puck was. So as he went to blocker or cross-check Scotty Hartnell, who was standing in front, the puck ended up going through his five-hole. I scored from almost like shortstop shooting to third base.
Hartnell: I think I got an assist on Syvret's goal. I was in front of the net when he did shoot it.
Syvret: I never saw it go in. It was sort of a spinning shot, so I couldn't tell if I actually scored or if it was deflected or what, because I never saw the path of it going into the net, so I was more excited that we had scored and were up, 1-0. It wasn't until the guys are all coming to me in the pile, like I scored.
Chara:We were behind most of the game and everyone was like, "Let's keep going," "Keep the pressure."
Syvret: I'm just thinking, oh, hopefully we can hang on to this. It would be so cool to have the game-winning goal in the Winter Classic.
Emrick: There's a stoppage of play late in the third. I mean, it's late in the third, and they decide to play "Sweet Caroline."
Matsuzaki:We played "Sweet Caroline." I believe it was Denis Leary [and Lenny Clarke] leading that.
"Sweet Caroline" had played with 8 minutes left in the game. At 17:42, Recchi scored the game-tying goal.
Recchi: To be able to score to tie the game up, getting near the end of the game, it was a great moment of my career. One you never forget.
Emrick: I thought to myself, they hauled out the song and the song worked.
Marco Sturm, Bruins forward:In the third period, it was not about Fenway, it was about how we have to get this job done because it meant so much for all of us, including the city and fans. That was for me, the biggest thing: It was, no more looking around. It was, let's get the job done here and win this game for all of us.
Coyle: I was a senior in high school. Me and [future Bruins teammate] Chris Wagner played on the same team. I remember he said he was going, and I was going with another buddy and his dad because they had tickets. We had a regular seat, like 200 yards away, and they're like let's go up on the Monster. So I just followed along. We snuck up there. And it was perfect because it was a great vantage point from there. That's where [Patrice Bergeron] passed to Marco Sturm for the winner, right down there.
Current Boston Bruins forward Charlie Coyle, then a senior in high school, attends the 2010 Winter Classic at Fenway Park.
Emrick: It was a typical Patrice Bergeron play that got the puck to Sturm for the winner.
Sturm: That moment, it was unbelievable. I have goosebumps right now. It was that cool. It changed a lot of things. Oh my God, I had signings and people all of a sudden were recognizing me everywhere. That game changed not only for us, but also me personally.
Emrick: The place went nuts at that point.
Marco Sturm celebrates his game-winning goal for Zdeno Chara for the Boston Bruins in the 2010 Winter Classic.
Recchi:Such a good feeling. We needed a win as well. We needed a big win. But then to do it at the Winter Classic, at home, in front of our fans, was awesome. And Sturmy's such a great guy. He played a heck of a game.
Sturm: It ended in a perfect scenario, tied it up late and scored in OT. Perfect. Exactly the way we wanted. That was for me personally one of the greatest games ever being in Boston, being around those hockey nuts.
Hartnell: One of my favorite moments of my career.
Syvret:My friend Dave Sanford is a photographer for the NHL and he actually was doing the game. After the game he grabbed me and he was like, here, take a picture in front of Fenway. I wouldn't have even thought of it. So I have that picture of me holding the puck with the Green Monster in the background.
Danny Syvret holds up the puck he scored for the first goal of the 2010 Winter Classic.
Coyle:There's a picture that we have and it's just me and my buddy and his little brother on the Green Monster, must have been right after they scored. Hey, turn around! I just always think back to that picture and being up there and sneaking up there.
Sturm: I felt like for some reason after that game and that little stretch we had afterwards, we became a really strong team. We kind of took off from there, it seems like, and that carried us into the playoffs. We got knocked out [by the Flyers, in the Eastern Conference Second Round], but the following year, we just built on it and we got stronger and better and faster. When I look back, it kind of started that year we had the game at Fenway. It started at Fenway.
NHL.com Senior Writer Dan Rosen and NHL.com Staff Writer Tom Gulitti contributed to this report.
