It really needs to be said that this Heritage Classic turned out awesome. It was a lot cooler an experience that I thought it was going to be. And by that, I mean that I thought the conditions were going to be a lot worse than they were. They were actually really good.
The ice here at Mosaic Stadium was awesome, super smooth and fast. Kind of the opposite of the practice day Friday, to be honest. They did some great work on it overnight and during the day and it felt great. The light snow was kind of cool, coming down like it did and it was all close to perfect for a setting to play a game because it wasn't piling up on the ice. And I didn't find it that cold, really. I think it was only a degree or two below freezing and I only wore one thicker layer of pants. Other than that, I had my regular stuff on for the game.
There was some snow on the ice at times. They did a great job shoveling it off. Honestly, if there had been no snow on the ice, I'd say that was the best ice I've ever played on. Really unbelievable. Everyone liked it. And it's crazy to think we were worried about the ice on Friday.
The wind, it wasn't too much of a factor. And that was kind of a surprise. Maybe it was because it was swirling around a bit or it wasn't just coming from one direction. I'm sure the huge stadium blocked some of it. I noticed it once in a while but I really don't remember noticing it while I was on the ice playing.
After I went for a walk downtown this morning and I was thinking then, 'Oh my God, we have to play tonight in this?' There were some strong gusts this morning, and you really felt that when you walked into the wind, but it really didn't turn out to be much of a factor.
This setting had a different feel to it. Such a different atmosphere than you get in a rink. I noticed how big the stadium was and how many fans were there, more than 33,000 I heard, and it had a big-show, entertainment feel to it. All really cool.
Once we started, other than it being the Heritage Classic, it felt like most other games. Sure, there were some sloppy plays that wouldn't have been made on a regular night, and a few fumbled pucks, but other than that, it felt like a normal game.
There were ups and downs and yes, some frustration when we fell behind in the game. We did think that it was a high stick on the puck by (Flames forward) Matthew Tkachuk that led to their goal from the replays we saw, but in the end I think that kind of fired us up. The tying goal by (Jets defenseman) Josh Morrissey got everyone on our side into it with 5:11 left in the third period and we've seen that a few times this year with our team coming back.
Now we get to overtime and I won the face-off in our own end, won it back to Neal Pionk exactly how I wanted to. So we regrouped and I was kind of going slow up the right side of the ice at first because I wasn't sure if their backchecker was going to catch us to make it a 2-on-2. But I saw he wasn't going as fast as I thought he might, so I took off to the net and honestly I just went to the net as hard as I could with my stick on the ice and Kyle Connor put a perfect pass right on my tape. What an awesome feeling.
