AHL Outdoor Classic played in puddles during heavy rain (Video)
There’s a reason outdoor games have swept through the hockey world. Sure, it’s the tremendous financial windfall they bring, it’s also their unpredictability: Two teams, facing the elements in a game that impacts the standings.
Unpredictable elements like, for example, the driving rain that fell on the American Hockey League Outdoor Classic in Bakersfield, Calif. on Saturday night.
The Bakersfield Condors (the Edmonton Oilers affiliate) met the Ontario Reign (the Los Angeles Kings affiliate) at 6 p.m. PT on the football field at Bakersfield College. There was talk during the week that the game could be moved to 1 p.m. due to a rainy forecast, but the show went on for an expected crowd of over 10,000 fans.
Around 4 p.m., there was a light drizzle on falling on the stadium. The rain actually let up during warmups. But as the game began, it fell steadily.
The game looked like this:
There is so much rain at the AHL Outdoor Classic tonight that whenever anyone shoots the puck, they also shoot a puddle of water pic.twitter.com/RJ8O72ia2w
— Brady Trettenero (@BradyTrett) January 8, 2017
And this:
Start of the 2nd period. pic.twitter.com/VQHPzZZpK2
— Tom Gazzola (@TomGazzola) January 8, 2017
And also this:
Never seen anything like it. pic.twitter.com/36Qj6KMHvb
— Lindsay Czarnecki (@ReignInsider) January 8, 2017
As well as this:
Auger goes water skiing pic.twitter.com/nDXYrE75UQ
— Sheng Peng (@Sheng_Peng) January 8, 2017
In fact, the rain created its own “glow puck” effect:
It's not rain, it's FoxTrax! pic.twitter.com/gTIxkvJdCz
— Sheng Peng (@Sheng_Peng) January 8, 2017
Even the AHL had to acknowledge the saturated fun:
This game is all Reign right now. pic.twitter.com/BoKS46tJU0
— AHL (@TheAHL) January 8, 2017
The precipitation came and went, the ice conditions went from horrible to playable. The game went on.
Bakersfield rallied for two goals in the third period and eventually won the game on overtime on a Griffin Reinhart goal.
The Condors won.
The Reign, appropriately enough, lost.
—
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.
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