By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/
Sidney Crosby is held by Washington Capitals' Mike Green in the first period of the NHL Winter Classic outdoor hockey game in Pittsburgh, Saturday, Jan. 1, 2011.(AP)Blessedly at 8:12 p.m. Saturday, the weeks-long Pittsburgh Meteorological Festival was interrupted by an actual hockey game, saving National Hockey League officials and their broadcasting cohorts from the inconvenience of having to build an ark and sail off toward some semblance of winter.
Instead, Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin shook hands in front of celebrity puck-droppers Mario Lemieux, Franco Harris, Jerome Bettis, U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Bradley T. Tinstman and 68,111 hyper-paying customers.
Wait, could I get a little more build-up?
No, the Winter Classic was finally overtaken by the Penguins and the Washington Capitals, whose difficult interpersonal politics can pull together a pretty decent hockey game just about anywhere, anytime, even here in the tropics of a Pittsburgh's January.
For the entirety of the first period, it was easy to see why the Capitals had allowed only 12 goals in their previous seven games, why they hadn't lost in two weeks, why, for all their woe-is-us character development in the HBO "24/7" docudrama in which Bruce Boudreau attempted unsuccessfully to break the f-bomb record set by New York Jets big-mouth Rex Ryan in the latest "Hard Knocks" caper, they're never to be underestimated.
Thus Crosby managed but one shot in the first 20 minutes, Evgeni Malkin no more than that, and in the second period the Capitals screwed things down even tighter, allowing only eight Penguins shots in the entire session.
Somehow that didn't keep Malkin from making history at 2:13 of the second, flashing behind Capitals defenseman John Erskine and burying the biscuit for a 1-0 Penguins lead. So the city that played host to the first World Series night game a mere 39 years ago has now hosted the first Winter Classic night game, with Malkin scoring the successful venture's first after-dark goal.
If the 8 p.m. starting time winds up bringing NBC a healthy rating, don't be surprised if the Winter Classic never sees daylight again.
"That's something we'll have to discuss with our network broadcast partner," said NHL commissioner Gary Bettman 15 minutes after this slop-fest ended without apparent injuries. "Best answer to that question will be an analysis of the ratings when they come in."
Translation: It's all but predestined.
PITTSBURGH, PA - JANUARY 01: John Erskine #4 of the Washington Capitals and Michael Rupp #17 of the Pittsburgh Penguins fight during the 2011 NHL Bridgestone Winter Classic at Heinz Field on January 1, 2011 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jamie Sabau/Getty Images)In the future, incidentally, all sporting events will start at 8 p.m. or after, or risk irrelevance. I mean if it hasn't happened on prime-time television, has it really happened?
What happened in this one was a pretty fair representation of what the NHL game is all about -- which is the oft-stated mission of the Winter Classic -- to present the game in all its traditional winter majesty to the uninitiated, so that they might appreciate the game's noble heritage and flowing beauty.
Cut to Mike Rupp pummeling Erskine earnestly about the face and head, and Erskine responding enthusiastically with one haymaker after another to lowlight that first period. That's called five for fighting.
But Malkin's marker didn't hold up for even five minutes of game clock against Boudreau's boys, whose manic net-crashing tied the score when Mike Knuble scored with help from Mike Green and Nicklas Backstrom to make it 1-1.
No one watching in Heinz Field or anywhere else could have missed the significance of Eric Fehr's goal late in the same period, which was more than merely the act that pushed Washington into the lead; it sent the Penguins to the locker room trailing after two periods, a situation in which they were a perfectly dismal 0-7-1 for the season.
Fehr's huge shot was purely the fault of Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, who was inexplicably fiddling with the puck at the rear boards behind the goal he was "tending," when the disc flipped free to Fehr in the right circle and was in the net one blink later.
Fleury immediately tried to break his stick over the crossbar in abject frustration, but that, too, was unsuccessful.
Had the Penguins any solution to this late-night predicament, it was the unheralded Fehr who made it doubly difficult late in the third when he broke in on Fleury and whistled home his second goal of the game (representing a mere 40 percent of his goal production in the club's first 39 games).
A third Capitals goal these days is another harbinger, it so happens. Washington is 22-0-2 in games when it scores at least thrice.
The 3-1 loss no doubt stung the Penguins personally, as it was likely the most conspicuous hockey game they will play until April, but just because they weren't great in this Winter Classic doesn't mean they weren't in the previous one.
No, not the inaugural version in Orchard Park, N.Y., against the Buffalo Sabres three years ago, the one in Washington Dec. 23, the one that went into overtime and into seven rounds of shootout before Pascal Dupuis ended it for the season's most memorable delivery of two points.
Now that was classic.
Not only was it classic, it was indoors.
Isn't that a good idea?
Gene Collier: gcollier@post-gazette.com.
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11002/1115111-150.stm#ixzz19tC8Umla
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