As of late Sunday afternoon, it was still Game On and no delays were expected for the 2023 Winter Classic at Fenway Park at 2 p.m. ET on Monday. The Boston Bruins and Pittsburgh Penguins both practiced at the Fenway Park rink on Sunday and had their families skating as well.
“It was great!” Boston Bruins Winger Jake DeBrusk spoke to Boston Hockey Now about ice conditions that understandably could have been much worse given temperatures reached the mid-50s for a fourth straight day in Boston. “Honestly, I could have understood if it wasn’t so great with the weather, but man, I thought it was awesome.”
The Winter Classic rink crew worked 24/7 to maintain certain ice temperatures and ensure that even with another sunny day in the 50s predicted, the showpiece game of the NHL regular season will start on time. The sun might still be a problem, but the league and the Winter Classic team are ready.
“Right now our plan is to finish practice here today,” NHL senior vice president of hockey operations Derek King said. “We’re going to cover it again tonight, check the weather tomorrow and cover it until the very last minute, then we have a plan in place to find out very close to the warm-up and then we’ll see what mother nature has in store for us tomorrow. .”
King was then asked how often do they check the ice temperature?
“We monitor it all the time and we have monitors in place to see the temperature of the ice once it is covered,” Chris responded. “We can check it from our phones and I spent too much time checking that and obviously checking the weather. We have a team here and when I’m not here, we have guys on site monitoring it, so it’s pretty much 24 hours a day.
We have the equipment in place that allows us to monitor. We know the temperature, we know the weather. So we can plan ahead, we can cool that sheet down a little bit, and we can make adjustments throughout the night and into tomorrow’s game.
The Winter Classic has already faced rain and warm temperatures, which has allowed King and his crew to learn some very valuable lessons.
“We had games in Dallas, games in Nashville where we had a lot of rain,” King said. “The one game that stands out is Tahoe. We learned a lot from that one. We always learn from each match so that we can prepare for the next matches.
