2016 Winter Classic Live Stream: Where to watch Bruins vs. Canadiens

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Gillette Stadium. As you can see, there’s some cloud cover, unlike yesterday when the sun was beating down on the ice.

Hopefully the conditions don’t change in the hours leading up to the Winter Classic. Too much sun and glare becomes a factor, and that could cause the opening faceoff to be delayed, not to mention the toll it takes on the ice.

Some say that, after eight years, the NHL Winter Classic has lost a bit of its magical luster.

The quality of the ice slows the game down noticeably, they say, and they add that the dynamic between the skating surface, the trueness of the boards, the wind, the sun glare and any other number of natural elements take away from the action.

But those outdoor hockey haters are wrong, and the evidence will be on clear display on Friday afternoon when the Boston Bruins and Montreal Canadiens renew their Original Six rivalry under a picturesque blue sky with 68,000-plus rabid fans cheering them on at Gillette Stadium. It's an event that fans have been clamoring for all season, something the players on the ice view as one of the most memorable games of their career.

Just ask Marco Sturm, who scored arguably the biggest goal of his career -- the overtime game-winner -- in the Bruins' 5-4 victory over the Flyers in the 2010 Winter Classic at Fenway Park.

“I think it's great,” said Sturm, who again scored an outdoor goal Thursday as the Bruins beat the Canadiens, 5-4, in the Alumni Game at Gillette Stadium. “In your career, there's not too many times . . . you have a chance to play outdoors in the Winter Classic. So I think good for me I had one, and I think good for me today I had a second one.

"But there are a lot of guys in this league that don't have a chance to play in one. I think it's really cool. It was really special. Fenway was amazing. It's a great story. I'm sure this one [on Friday] will be a great event, also.”

It will be a great event, based not only on the rivalry between the Bruins and Habs but also on what the Winter Classic represents to each player on both sides. Skating on a frozen sheet under a blue sky with the wind and the elements brings hockey back to its purest form for all those players, whether it’s David Krejci thinking back to his mother bringing his favorite sandwich to outdoor all-day tournaments in his native Czech Republic, or Landon Ferraro coming home to Trail, British Columbia, for Christmas where he’d play outdoor pickup hockey with former Bruins forward Craig Cunningham and several other players who went on to pro careers.

“I had a backyard rink,” said Brett Connolly. “Every winter and every Christmas, so that was a tradition. Those are memories that I’ll always look back on fondly. It was me, my brother and our buddies just screwing around and playing hockey.

“My house was where everybody would come. It was kind of the meeting spot. We’d play after dinner, before dinner . . . during dinner. It didn’t really matter. I think it’s great for the game. That’s where it started, on the ponds and on the lakes. It’s sticking with the roots where everybody grew up playing in the winter. It didn’t matter how much money you had. You’d just find an old pair of skates, a stick and a glove and go play hockey.”

Clearly it’s not the same for everybody. Jimmy Hayes grew up in Dorchester, and there weren’t a lot of backyard rinks or frozen ponds in the middle of the city. Kevan Miller is from Los Angeles, and there absolutely wasn’t any ice time outdoors unless the NHL was coming to town to erect a rink in the middle of Dodger Stadium. And the league didn't do that until 2014.

Brad Marchand really wanted to play in the outdoor game because that was a part of what shaped his love hockey growing up . . .  though he won’t get that chance after getting suspended.

“I always lived on a lake or a pond, and there was always an outdoor arena,” said Marchand. “My first outdoor rink as a kid I’ll always remember because it was the top of a hill. We’d skate and play there, and then when we were done we’d just roll back down the hill afterward. That was really fun.

“It was always the best time of year. We’d come home from school or get up early before school, and just go out there and play for hours. It would be fun because we’d never do our homework, and just go out there and skate all day instead.”

That’s why this Winter Classic has captured the imaginations of hockey fans all across the world. They remember what it was like to play pickup hockey on a lake or a pond without boards, where you would chase the puck all over the ice and stay out in the cold skating until you were nothing more than a stick-wielding ice block on skates that required hot cocoa to warm up.

The ice may play a little slowly Friday at Gillette Stadium, and some of the bounces might not be totally true. There might even be a few moments when both teams have a hard time picking up the puck off the glare from the sun.

But it’s also hockey in its purest form, when the money and glory and fame take a backseat to memories of when a lifelong love affair with the sport was born.

That's why the Winter Classic is as charming as it’s ever been, and why it will continue to be something that everybody in the NHL wants to be involved with on New Year’s Day.

- Joe Haggerty serves as Comcast SportsNet's NHL Insider. Read more from Joe here, or follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.