Colder: Edmonton in November, or Buffalo in January?

There’s nothing as anti-climactic as a press conference for news leaked a long time ago. For the three remaining hockey fans who haven’t heard, the Penguins and Sabres will be playing outdoors on New Year’s Day. The game will be played at Ralph Wilson Stadium, which won’t be seeing any use for football in January if the first two weeks of the Bills’ season is any indication.

Officially, it’s known as the AMP Energy NHL Winter Classic. We all know that it’s really the AMP Energy Let’s See If The American Media Notices Us Now? Heritage Classic II: Electric Socks Boogaloo.

In a rare moment of wisdom, the NHL brass realized that Panthers vs. Coyotes would never be a big draw. Instead, we get Daniel Briere Chris Drury Thomas Vanek and the Buffalo Sabres against the Cole Harbour Messiah and the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Those of you hoping for an old-timers game as an opening act will be disappointed. Seems that there’s a narrow window between the national New Year’s Day hangover and the day’s first bowl game between teams with less than two losses. Bummer. I was hoping that the Sabres would “trade” Tom Barasso to the Penguins for Mike Bullard and a case of I.C. Light in the first intermission, so the Pens could replace Barasso with Ron Tugnutt after the second.

I just hope NBC knows that there’s a shootout in the regular season, so they won’t miss more than 10 minutes of the 3-hour pre-game show for the… um… Oh, NBC doesn’t have a bowl game on New Year’s Day. Phew. Dodged a bullet there.

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