NHL Winter Classic: Should Changes Be Made?

We’re now in December and the holiday season has just begun. For sports fans this spells a busy part of the year. We’ve got the NFL playoff races in full swing, the bowl games in college football and, on Christmas Day, the NBA’s biggest regular-season games.

To conclude this month of holidays, there will be the fourth-annual NHL Winter Classic on New Year’s Day, 2011, the biggest event on that day.

But wait a minute.

Aren’t the BCS games in college football taking place on this day? That’s right, the Rose Bowl and Fiesta Bowl are to be played on this day, as they have been for several years. So are several non-BCS bowls (Outback, Capital One and Gator).

Sounds like the Winter Classic is the highlight of New Year’s Day no more.

But it’s something the NHL has had to cope with since the first Winter Classic back in 2008: competition from bowl games.

While many hockey fans are ranting about the Classic featuring Sidney Crosby and the Penguins versus Alex Ovechkin and the Capitals, that’s the least of my worries. The handwriting was on the wall for such a matchup to take place in the Winter Classic, and it should be the last time for a long time that the Pens play in the Classic, and for the Capitals, until 2014 at least.

As you may have already guessed, I do not like the game being played on January 1.

Does the NHL think they can just waltz into New Year’s thinking that they are now the main attraction of the day? Despite the fact the Classic will be played on NBC, and every bowl game on New Year’s Day except the Outback Bowl will be on cable, the Classic is routinely beaten locally by bowl games in the ratings.

In 2009, Michigan State’s appearance in the Capital One Bowl drew higher ratings in the Detroit market than the Red Wings in the Winter Classic.

I also believe more people in Philadelphia watched the same bowl the next year that featured Penn State, instead of watching the Flyers take on the Bruins at Fenway Park.

The first day of 2012 will be on a Sunday, the date of many NFL games. If the date doesn’t get changed, the NHL’s biggest regular-season game will face a steep climb to grasp the attention of sports fans, no matter what the matchup may be.

Wouldn’t it be better if we drop the New Year’s date and move the Winter Classic to sometime in December just after Christmas?

It shouldn’t be any problem to beat bowl games that struggle to catch anyone’s interest.

The date of the game could be changed around each year (example: Dec. 27 one year, Dec. 29 the next) so as not to compete with the major bowl games, or they could play on December 26, change the date if the 26th falls on Sunday, and the NHL Winter Classic would still be the star attraction of the day.

While we’re at it, we could move the game to prime time, as networks like NBC are showing nothing but reruns during the holidays.   

To add more interest in the game, the game should feature two good teams. In other words, the teams must have made the playoffs the previous season to be eligible to play in the Winter Classic. That would be the key element to make more people watch the Classic.

When the NHL announced that the Capitals and Penguins would play in the 2011 edition of the outdoor game in early summer, fate would have it that they are in first and second overall in their conference (as of this writing).

But in all honesty, I think the NHL should wait until the playoffs are over to decide who gets to play. That way, they could not only have two teams that made the playoffs the previous season, they could potentially have a rematch of an epic playoff series.

While I can’t exactly pinpoint which teams will meet in the playoffs this spring for a hard-fought seven or six game war, it’s something the NHL should look at when picking its next matchup for the Winter Classic.

With all the talk about the outdoor game, and the image the NHL gets from it, let’s make sure the Winter Classic doesn't get more prestigious than the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Though the outdoor game for the NHL is the biggest event in the regular season for the league, I find the playoffs that last eight weeks more interesting than an outdoor game that lasts only one day. To say the Winter Classic is more interesting than the Stanley Cup playoffs is like saying the NBA Christmas day games are more enticing than the NBA playoffs.

Hey, don’t get me wrong here: I’m not saying the Winter Classic is terrible, I’m saying the Classic could use a few changes so more people will flock to the event, generating more TV viewers and interest.

Throwing in what I suggested would be a good start.