By: Sarah Connors
You can find Sarah’s work at her Boston Bruins blog, teapartythrowdown.com. She is an avid Bruins fan, and you can follow her on Twitter (@sarah_connors). If you don’t follow here already, she is a hoot on Bruins game nights! She was kind enough to write a guest blog for us today, surrounding tomorrow’s Winter Classic in Beantown!
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What does the Winter Classic mean to the city of Boston?
This is the question I was posed when writing this blog entry. I chewed on it, thought about it for a few days. I've been caught up in the hype, the live webcam, the pre-Classic skates, the scalping scandals, the commercialism and promotion that is surrounding this understandably epic game. And these are, for the most part, all positive things (minus the scalping!). My heart swells when I see those gold-and-brown toques around the Boston area. This game means publicity for our improving hockey club and has the potential to draw even more fans.
These are all good things – but I don't think they really get at the heart of what this game really means.
Any Red Sox fan can tell you about the history of the ballpark; about Babe Ruth and David Ortiz, Pedro Martinez and Jim Rice and Bill Buckner; about years like 1918, 1986 and 2004 and 2007. Any Bruins fan can tell you about the history of this franchise; about the five Stanley cups; about Ray Bourque and Bobby Orr and Eddie Shore; about Cam Neely and Sergei Samsonov, Zdeno Chara and Patrice Bergeron. Last year, we saw a merging of these two great North American sports at Chicago's Wrigley Field. Both of those teams have just as rich a history as our teams here in Boston. Those of us who follow both sports could only dream of having the timelines of our own historic franchises woven together on a day the way they were woven at Wrigley.
It was rumored in April, confirmed in June, promoted through the summer at Sox games. Bruins jerseys started appearing randomly in the stands just like Sox hats have been interloping in the Garden for years. Instead of being flooded by Red Sox fans, crazed and sweating and celebrating in the warm October nights in 2004 and 2007, Kenmore Square will be colored by a sea of black and gold (and brown), freezing temperatures far below anything typically experienced by our Red Sox, and an aura of something fresh, something new; a new piece of history being written. Fenway is a ballpark awash in brilliant colors; there's something romantic about the sharp contrast of red seats, green grass, green walls, and blue sky; the smells and sounds and sights of thousands of people uniting behind a team on a hot summer day.
Now take that image and flip it on its head.
Instead of stretching out at Fenway with a hot dog and a beer in your shorts and T-shirt, you're huddling with your neighbors. Colors are muted; the inside of the park seemingly brighter than ever, the ground covered in snow and an oval of ice, the bright green of the grass and brown of the dirt toed by batters and pitchers like a dream, the possibliity of snow making this image of Fenway on Ice even more surreal. Baseball's coming back, Sox fans, but first we have the Winter Classic; hockey on a baseball field. It's not something that's happened before in Boston, and who knows if it will happen again? The important thing will be the incredible feeling of two history-rich teams colliding. Savor it, sports fans.
You can find Sarah’s work at her Boston Bruins blog, teapartythrowdown.com. She is an avid Bruins fan, and you can follow her on Twitter (@sarah_connors). If you don’t follow here already, she is a hoot on Bruins game nights! She was kind enough to write a guest blog for us today, surrounding tomorrow’s Winter Classic in Beantown!
---
What does the Winter Classic mean to the city of Boston?
This is the question I was posed when writing this blog entry. I chewed on it, thought about it for a few days. I've been caught up in the hype, the live webcam, the pre-Classic skates, the scalping scandals, the commercialism and promotion that is surrounding this understandably epic game. And these are, for the most part, all positive things (minus the scalping!). My heart swells when I see those gold-and-brown toques around the Boston area. This game means publicity for our improving hockey club and has the potential to draw even more fans.
These are all good things – but I don't think they really get at the heart of what this game really means.
Any Red Sox fan can tell you about the history of the ballpark; about Babe Ruth and David Ortiz, Pedro Martinez and Jim Rice and Bill Buckner; about years like 1918, 1986 and 2004 and 2007. Any Bruins fan can tell you about the history of this franchise; about the five Stanley cups; about Ray Bourque and Bobby Orr and Eddie Shore; about Cam Neely and Sergei Samsonov, Zdeno Chara and Patrice Bergeron. Last year, we saw a merging of these two great North American sports at Chicago's Wrigley Field. Both of those teams have just as rich a history as our teams here in Boston. Those of us who follow both sports could only dream of having the timelines of our own historic franchises woven together on a day the way they were woven at Wrigley.
It was rumored in April, confirmed in June, promoted through the summer at Sox games. Bruins jerseys started appearing randomly in the stands just like Sox hats have been interloping in the Garden for years. Instead of being flooded by Red Sox fans, crazed and sweating and celebrating in the warm October nights in 2004 and 2007, Kenmore Square will be colored by a sea of black and gold (and brown), freezing temperatures far below anything typically experienced by our Red Sox, and an aura of something fresh, something new; a new piece of history being written. Fenway is a ballpark awash in brilliant colors; there's something romantic about the sharp contrast of red seats, green grass, green walls, and blue sky; the smells and sounds and sights of thousands of people uniting behind a team on a hot summer day.
Now take that image and flip it on its head.
Instead of stretching out at Fenway with a hot dog and a beer in your shorts and T-shirt, you're huddling with your neighbors. Colors are muted; the inside of the park seemingly brighter than ever, the ground covered in snow and an oval of ice, the bright green of the grass and brown of the dirt toed by batters and pitchers like a dream, the possibliity of snow making this image of Fenway on Ice even more surreal. Baseball's coming back, Sox fans, but first we have the Winter Classic; hockey on a baseball field. It's not something that's happened before in Boston, and who knows if it will happen again? The important thing will be the incredible feeling of two history-rich teams colliding. Savor it, sports fans.
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1 comments:
It will be great to watch Boston Red Sox, i have bought tickets from
http://ticketfront.com/event/Boston_Red_Sox-tickets looking forward to it.
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