Twenty years have passed since the Oilers played the first regular season outdoor game in the NHL’s modern era, and at the time it was an “act to be followed at one’s own peril, a massive success that seemed impossible to duplicate,” according to Mark Spector of SPORTSNET.ca. The Oilers, who were the “authors of that first Heritage Classic” in late November 2003 at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, are set to return to the site of that first outdoor game on Oct. 29 for a matchup against the Flames. Moving the game up “nearly a month to before Halloween” all but eliminates the “chances of a game that was as cold as the Winter Classic” played at Target Field in Minneapolis on Jan. 1, 2022, where the game time temperature was minus-22 Celsius. Spector noted that was the “coldest outdoor game ever played.” But there are “still issues to contend with” despite the “expertise gained in three decades” that have taken the league from Caesar’s Palace -- where the lights went on and the grasshoppers showed up by the thousands -- to Lake Tahoe, where sunshine became a major problem. NHL Chief Content Officer Steve Mayer said the outdoor game has “evolved” and the NHL has “learned a lot over the years.” Mayer: “We have a mantra with the league: ‘Let's make the next one bigger and better than the last one.’ And we think we've made them really unique and different. They may have lost their luster globally, because we've done quite a few of them and gone to a lot a lot of cities. But man, when you're in that market where the games happening, it's incredible.” Spector noted the first game in 2003 saw a temperature of -18.6 degrees Celsius at puck drop between the Oilers and Canadiens, who played in front of 57,167 “frigid folks” (SPORTSNET.ca, 9/6).
