Winter Classic at Notre Dame Stadium will be amazing, Kane says

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- When Patrick Kane was in high school, he received a call from Notre Dame hockey coach Jeff Jackson.

"One of his first questions was, like, 'How are your grades?' " Kane said. "So I knew I probably wasn't coming to Notre Dame after that."
Kane laughed at the memory Monday.
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He skipped college. But he was a student of the game and an A-plus player, and he will play at Notre Dame when the Chicago Blackhawks play the Boston Bruins in the 2019 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic on Tuesday (1 p.m. ET; NBC, SN, TVAS).
How cool is this? His first name is Patrick. His family is mostly Irish. He comes from an Irish neighborhood in south Buffalo. Though he wasn't a Notre Dame fan himself, he grew up around people who wore Notre Dame gear and would travel to South Bend to see the Fighting Irish play football.
He is already one of the greatest Americans in NHL history, arguably the greatest. Among his many accomplishments, he's the only United States-born player to win the Hart Trophy as the NHL's most valuable player and the Art Ross Trophy as its scoring champion.

Now he's playing at Notre Dame Stadium, the home of the Fighting Irish football team and one of the greatest American sports venues, arguably the greatest.
"It's an unbelievable spectacle, great event," Kane said, wearing a Blackhawks hat and T-shirt with the 2019 Winter Classic's shamrock logo. "It sounds like we're going to have a good crowd tomorrow and there's going to be a lot of fans out there. I heard 70,000-plus, which is, you know, amazing.
"And you're at Notre Dame, so it's like, how could you not be excited about it?"
On top of that, he's on top of his game.
Kane, 30, has 50 points (22 goals, 28 assists) in 40 games, including 13 points (seven goals, six assists) on his current seven-game point streak, a big reason the Blackhawks are on a 5-1-0 run. The forward was named the NHL's First Star of the Week on Monday.

He's averaging 0.55 goals, 0.70 assists and 1.25 points per game. When he won the Hart and Art Ross in 2015-16, he averaged 0.56 goals, 0.73 assists and 1.29 points per game, setting NHL career highs in goals (46), assists (60) and points (106).
"He just keeps pushing it, and when I say that, I mean he seems to add a new dimension to his game year after year," Blackhawks general manager Stan Bowman said. "I guess that's what makes him such a special player.
"You look around the League and you look at the elite players, they seem to find a way to kind of take their game up a level, and as great as they are, they come back the next year and they add a new wrinkle to their game.
"So I think in Patrick's case, he's a creative player offensively. He makes plays. He scores goals. He finds ways no matter who he's playing with, no matter what line he's on, who he's playing against, and he's a treat to watch."
Kane has played in five NHL outdoor games, tied for the record with seven others, including teammates Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook and Jonathan Toews. He has had three points (one goal, two assists) while the Blackhawks have gone 1-4-0.

Still, he said these events don't get old, especially under circumstances like this.
"It gives you something to get excited about," he said. "I think it's always a little bit more special on Jan. 1st, and then when you add in Boston Bruins, Chicago Blackhawks, Original Six, it's here at Notre Dame, I mean, it's like, it's probably as good as it gets."
The Blackhawks held part of their training camp at Notre Dame in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2017. On Sept. 19, 2015, Kane got to sit on the field in the back of an end zone to watch the Fighting Irish defeat Georgia Tech 30-22.
Never did he think he would walk through the fans from the Hesburgh Library to Notre Dame Stadium like the Fighting Irish do on game day. Or that he would enter the Knute Rockne Gate, dress in the home locker room and walk down the steps below the sign that says, "PLAY LIKE A CHAMPION TODAY." Or that he would play his sport on that field in front of a crowd that size.
"I mean, Notre Dame," Kane said. "It's so much history. I think for us, you just kind of think about having training camp here, and for me, you watch that move 'Rudy' growing up all the time. Some unbelievable scenes in that. So pretty amazing that you're going to just be playing a hockey game and you're going to actually be performing out there."