Friday’s Canadiens-Bruins Bridgestone Winter Classic will “be secondary, as it always has been whenever NHL teams have gone outdoors,” as the event “has been and will be about television programming,” according to Fluto Shinzawa of the BOSTON GLOBE. NBC Sports Exec Producer Sam Flood said, “It’s become a tentpole event and a New Year’s tradition. People now expect on New Year’s Day to sit and watch what is a true spectacle in hockey.” Shinzawa noted neither NBC nor the NHL “knew how to package the inaugural game” in ‘08. They had “never done anything like it.” Flood recalled that the “mandate in Buffalo was to present an event, not a hockey game.” So NBC “kept its cameras on players’ faces longer to capture their curiosity of playing outside.” Even though the weather “prevented blimps or helicopters from taking flight, NBC hired an airplane to fly over the stadium.” When a goal went to replay, the producers “went to a shot from the plane instead of on the ice.” Friday’s game “will be the third that takes place at a football stadium," and while as "quirky as hockey inside a baseball stadium may seem on TV, a football venue has its advantages." Gillette Stadium holds "approximately twice as many fans" as Fenway Park, and sightlines "are better." The venue also is "friendlier to TV’s needs.” The NHL and NBC “will need every advantage they can get” -- in addition to the traditional lineup of college bowl games, NBC also is “losing the double-fisted American market combination that delivered a 2.9 rating for Chicago-Detroit at Wrigley Field.” The net is “counting on the New England market to tune into the Winter Classic in a big way to help offset Montreal’s inclusion” (BOSTON GLOBE, 12/29).
