Designing a 'Classic' Experience

Just how the Kraken secured the 2024 Discover NHL Winter Classic in only the team's second season playing under an iconic roof at Climate Pledge Arena, is, fittingly enough, about another roof.
"We are very confident about building an incredible outdoor rink and fan experience in Seattle," said Steve Mayer, the NHL's chief content officer and executive vice president this weekend. "Weather, of course, is a big factor in choosing the Winter Classic. What's crazy and why we picked the Mariners ballpark is because we need a certain number of days to reliably build the outdoor rink and all the other design elements.

"Inclement weather, snow or rain, can slow us down and definitely worry us. But at the ballpark in Seattle, we can slide over the retractable roof when it rains. If we didn't have that and it rained every other day, we couldn't build. That was a big factor."
As Kraken fans and the entire region savor the spectacle of outdoor hockey at T-Mobile Park, complete with Matty playing in Julio's house, here is a starter kit of knowledge about the big game and big fun coming next winter:

When It Rains, It Jeopardizes the Ice

While most fans think warmer temperatures are the enemy of the NHL ice gurus who set up shop at Winter Classic venues, the rink masters are much more worried about heavier and/or constant rain and the sun. Too much rain requires the ice crew to remove the pooling water or freeze it. Both options have their downsides. The ice for a Winter Classic is about two inches thick (more than twice as much as a typical NHL arena) to counteract outdoor effects, but the rink keepers don't want it any thicker than that.
Seattleites might shrug that sun is a worry given the typical string of overcast days marking late December and early January in the region. But sun during a day game played on a white sheet of ice can create glare that makes it hard for goaltenders to see the puck and has caused some past NHL outdoor games to establish a later-afternoon puck drop or play the game at night. Our region's average January temperatures (mid-40s high, mid-30s low) are not the ideal 24 degrees Fahrenheit but cloud cover makes it highly conducive to competitive playing conditions for what is still a regular-season game that counts in the standings.

Outdoor Hockey: Perfect 10s

Pond hockey is at the root of the Winter Classic phenomenon and even the sport of hockey itself. The lore expands with visions of Canadian kids growing up skating on ponds, lakes, rivers, canals, skating trails, home-spun rinks, plus no shortage of outdoor municipal rinks. It's literal and figurative goose bumps for any of us who conjure memories have braving the cold, hearing the scrape-scrape of sticks and skates, then sipping the hot chocolate that somehow motivates to brave more cold.
For 20-year-old Kraken rookie Matty Beniers, his outdoor hockey days started on a frozen pond behind his family's house in Hingham, MA. He played pond hockey with family and friends, squeezing in time for dinner, then back out to the ice. Sometimes, for hours, he was the only one skating, usually working on his shooting and stickhandling.
Another No. 10, Hockey Hall of Famer and Kraken GM Ron Francis, played all sorts of hockey growing up in Sault St. Marie, ON. His hometown, where he starred for the elite juniors "Soo" Greyhounds, boast five outdoor municipal rinks plus plenty of frozen swatches of lake.
But Francis' fondest outdoor hockey memories stem from a Bayview neighborhood rink maintained by local postman, neighbor and Francis' bantam youth coach, the late Mike Zuke. The rink was 60 by 90 feet and Zuke started by putting up boards as early as September. Then he added lights and netting to keep pucks from disappearing in the snow-covered woods.
Zuke used a hose hooked up to the family's kitchen plumbing to meticulously spray an ice surface in many thin layers. Zuke's own son, Mike Jr., leveraged all that rink access into his own NHL career, playing for the Hartford Whalers and St. Louis Blues. On weekends, in a home-made shack, there would be hot chocolate and hot dogs for the kids.
"In my high school years, I would hurry home to get my homework done, eat dinner and get to Mike's rink by six and play until 10 or 11 at night during the week, sometimes midnight or 1 in the morning on the weekends," said Ron Francis over the weekend, happy at the memory. "Mike was a great teacher. It was a lot of fun. I learned a lot."

Inclusive By Design

While no fan will mistake which is the main rink at T-Mobile Park next January, the Winter Classic tradition calls for an additional outdoor rink or rinks to be part of game day. Players of all ages and levels of skill take to those ice surfaces during breaks in play. The design of the main and auxiliary rinks vary by venue, but always with the intention to include as many hockey players and skaters as possible before, during and after the Jan. 1 NHL game.
A highlight for players is a Dec. 31 outdoor practice followed by a family skate. In Seattle, there will be other opportunities for fans and skaters to experience the ballpark rinks with details coming at later dates. The league and Kraken will be looking to provide the broadest access to the event, the venue and the accompanying open-to-the-public fan festival. You can
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"My favorite part of the process is creating the entire environment and field design," said Mayer. "It's always a thrill to see the game and whole field come to life in a unique way for the host city."

Best Seats, World's Largest Refrigerator and One Sure Thing

Dean Matsuzaki, executive vice president for NHL events, has worked every Winter Classic since the first one in Buffalo on New Year's Day, 2008. The 2024 game will be a homecoming of sorts since Matsuzaki, who grew up in Vancouver, BC, and attended the 2001 Major League Baseball All-star Game at then-Safeco Field, plus Mariners games over the years.
Matsuzaki will be in Seattle for this summer's MLB all-star event to see how the venue handles big doings. Matsuzaki, Mayer and other staff have already conducted site visits and are already in the planning phases for next Jan. 1.
"Populous, our Winter Classic architectural firm, is currently working on a heat map for us," said Matsuzaki. "It looks at sight lines from every seat in the ballpark and shows where the sweet spot is to build the rinks for the best fan experience."
One big item on the checklist is where to park the 53-foot-long refrigeration truck outside the ballpark. It is the world's largest mobile rink refrigeration unit, specially built for outdoor games conducted by the NHL. It's 300-ton cooling capacity covers all the formidable ice needs for a Winter Classic. When it rolls into town in mid-December, it will mark the official takeover of the Mariners ballpark.
The location of the refrigeration truck is vital because the ice crew has to run piping from that epicenter to some 300 ice pans underneath the NHL-regulation size rink inside T-Mobile Park. The longer the distance, the more chance something goes wrong. Once parked, a crew of 10 to 15 works at least 16-hour days for 10 to 12 days to build the rink. Another 30 to 40 workers will provide ice decking and manage roadways.
Matsuzaki confirmed there will be the annual two-day fan fest providing fan activations, player appearances, food and beverages and, of course, viewings of the Stanley Cup with (guessing on this detail) a special nod to Seattle being the first U.S. city to win the coveted hockey trophy. Past fan fests have been close to the Winter Classic venue and others were closer to a city's downtown or near the hockey arena. The NHL is studying whether to host the fest near T-Mobile Park or closer to Climate Pledge Arena.
"Beyond that, Steve [Mayer] and his group are already diving into the field design pretty deeply. I'll go out of the limb right now [laughing] and say at some point you're going see a salmon toss somewhere."