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In 2008, the NHL stumbled upon a brilliant formula: send two teams to play outside in the elements on or around New Year’s Day in an iconic stadium and you’ve got an instant spectacle.

That’s what the Winter Classic is and was always designed to be: a spectacle. Even when the game itself doesn’t deliver the goods, the sights, sounds, and atmosphere make it one of the most unique annual events in sports.

We all knew going in that this matchup between the Chicago Blackhawks and St. Louis Blues probably wasn’t going to deliver the goods. Historically? Yeah, it’s a great rivalry, but neither team is exactly cooking this year (although the Blues are 9-5 since Jim Montgomery took over, and we all remember what happened during the 2018-19 season when Craig Berube replaced Mike Yeo behind the bench mid-season and the Blues went on a tear and wound up winning the Cup), and it was a pretty smooth 6-2 win for the Blues.

But that’s the beauty of the Winter Classic; the spectacle surrounding the game will still make it worth checking out.

Take for instance player arrivals. The Blackhawks embraced the city and took the train to Wrigley along with a bagpipe escort.

I think we all know one of the reasons the league awarded the Winter Classic to Chicago despite the team struggling so badly was because they wanted to get one of the league’s brightest young stars, Connor Bedard, on one of its biggest stages.

This hasn’t been the best season for Bedard, but it was still cool to see him snap some pucks around during warm-ups with shades on.

I know baseball stadiums aren’t exactly shaped the best for hockey, but how can you not love this setting?

Then we’ve got another thing I love about the Winter Classic, and that’s the way these venues aren’t suited for hockey. That sounds bad, but it gives us fun stuff like the ridiculous journey down the steps the Blues had to make from the visitors’ clubhouse. 

The two teams hitting the ice is always another goosebump-inducing moment, and this year’s game was no exception. The Smashing Pumpkins — who hail from Chicago — played their song “Tonight, Tonight” as both teams emerged from the dugouts.

Then we still had a game to play, and the scoring got started quickly (not faster than Colby Artmstrong’s record-setting tally 21 seconds into the first Winter Classic between the Penguins and Sabres though), and who better to score than Blues defenseman Cam Fowler?

Fowler was skating in his 1,000th NHL game, making him the first player to hit that milestone in a Winter Classic, and broke open the scoring with an early powerplay goal.

Beautiful.

Special teams were big early in this game, and all three goals scored in the period were the result of powerplays.

There was some rough stuff too, with Blackhawks captain Nick Foligno dropping the gloves with Blues captain Brayden Schenn.

Veteran move by Foligno to get the team fired up… it just didn’t quite work.

The aforementioned Fowler was the man of the hour and he struck again in the second period to give the Blues a 5-1 lead.

The Blackhawks added a powerplay goal and the Blues tacked on another to win 6-2.

Not the best game, but I do have to hand it to the folks at Bleacher Report for an A+ meme when it was over.

But remember, the great thing about the Winter Classic is the spectacle. The historic venue, the throwback uniforms (both were great this year and the Blackhawks’ brown gloves? *chef’s kiss*), and even the at-times uncooperative weather make this a must-watch part of the NHL schedule every year.

There hasn’t been any word yet on the next Winter Classic, but there have been rumors bouncing around that it could involve the Florida Panthers one of three teams who have yet to play outside (Columbus and Utah are the others, though the Jackets will play outside in a couple of months.

Some comments from NHL commissioner Gary Bettman seem to potentially point in that direction as well.

We’ll know soon enough.