Posted by Scott Burnside
What's wrong with this picture?
For the third straight season, the NHL is venturing out of doors Jan. 1 with its wildly successful Winter Classic.
Sidney Crosby was there for the inaugural one in Buffalo in 2008.
Last year, the NHL made great strides both in terms of marketing the event and the game conditions themselves with its terrific Original Six clash between Detroit and Chicago at venerable Wrigley Field.
This year, the NHL will try to take yet another step forward in creating an event that will reach across traditional hockey boundaries by playing a game at Fenway Park in Boston, an event confirmed Wednesday as the NHL released its full 2009-2010 schedule.
You'd expect, then, that the NHL would have finally gotten around to inviting Alexander Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals to perform on such a stage, wouldn't you?
Ah, no.
Instead, the NHL and broadcast partner NBC have settled on the Philadelphia Flyers, a compromise, according to multiple sources.
No offense to Simon Gagne, new Flyer Chris Pronger and repatriated bad-boy netminder Ray Emery, but the decision to have the Flyers face off against the Bruins, announced at a press conference in Boston on Wednesday afternoon, is one that simply flies in the face of logic.
If the point of the Winter Classic is to showcase the game's greatest talents on a grand and unusual stage, to appeal to an audience that might not otherwise tune in to NHL games, it behooves the NHL to do it right. It behooves the NHL not to compromise on a product with a proven ability to achieve those lofty goals.
That at least three of these outdoor games will pass without the Caps and Ovechkin on display is ludicrous.
If, as sources tell ESPN.com, the decision was made based largely on the fact that Philadelphia is a bigger television market than Washington, someone ought to send those decision-makers video of some of Ovechkin's many highlight-reel goals.
Does anyone remember the buzz of the Washington-Pittsburgh playoff series a year ago?
Does anyone remember the theatrics Ovechkin delivered to the normally stifling skills competition at the All-Star Game in Montreal in January?
Did anyone notice that Ovechkin won his second straight Hart Trophy in June and that the Caps are among the most exciting teams in the NHL with a supporting cast that includes Norris Trophy candidate Mike Green, Nicklas Backstrom and Alexander Semin?
Well?
The other problem with handing this plum to the Flyers for the 2010 Winter Classic is that it pretty much takes them out of the running to co-host another potential Winter Classic that makes much more sense, a cross-state hook-up with Pittsburgh, perhaps at Beaver Stadium at Penn State. Certainly that kind of matchup would have much more cachet than a Flyers-Bruins tilt. And such a matchup will now have to wait a number of years, as other teams will be clamoring to get a shot at hosting and/or taking part in the Winter Classic.
No doubt the Fenway experience will be terrific.
Just imagine how good it could have been had the right team been invited to play.
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