Terrible ice cuts Red Wings Stadium Series practice short
DENVER – It’s Denver, Colorado. It’s the end of February. And it was around 62 degrees as the Detroit Red Wings walked out to the middle of Coors Field, but hotter in the sun, which made the outdoor ice glow in the early afternoon.
So the Red Wings skated out. They got loose, ran some drills. And then they left the ice well before their allotted time was over, due to the conditions and concerns about the ice from the NHL.
“It was a little soupy. I didn’t expect it to be that hot out there. You expect in February that it was going to be a cold. It was the opposite,” said winger Tomas Tatar, whose team will battle the Colorado Avalanche at Coors Field on Saturday night
One problem was the heat, especially for players in full gear.
“If we had short-sleeves on, playing street hockey, it would have felt good,” said center Brad Richards.
The other problem was the ice itself, which made practicing “impossible” according to coach Jeff Blashill.
Every time there’s an outdoor hockey game in the NHL, someone sounds the alarm about ice conditions after practice, due to glare or bad ice. That someone this time was Red Wings forward Darren Helm.
“It was pretty tough to do anything: skate, pass. You’d send a flat pass and it would bounce 10 times before it got to someone’s stick,” he said. “It is a concern. You can’t play on ice like that. If it got any worse than that, there was no way we could play tomorrow.”
Helm said it’s more of a safety issue than a quality of play issue.
“We can’t be skating around worried about catching holes or divots and crashing into the boards. The quality of play would be bad if guys were worried about that,” he said. “Hopefully it was just the sun cooking it today."
And that’s the thing: Despite all the concerns about the quality of the ice on Friday afternoon, the Stadium Series game is being played at 6 p.m. on Saturday.
“Hopefully when the sun goes down, it’ll be better ice conditions,” said Helm.
The League has given the Red Wings assurances that there will be. “That’s what we’ve been told. They’re going to find a way to get the ice ready,” said Tatar.
Still, it’ll be over 70 degrees on Saturday leading up to the game.
“I didn’t foresee this happening,” said Helm. “I don’t think the league did either.”
--
Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.
MORE FROM YAHOO HOCKEY
