You might think that the last thing on Ryan McDonagh’s mind over winter break would be hockey. With classes over and a mid-season break free of school and athletics, the junior tri-captain of the Wisconsin men’s hockey team finally got some time off. You might think the idea of going home and lacing up the skates for some backyard hockey would have no appeal.
You would be wrong.
“Just over Christmas break when I went home, I just was looking forward to it so much because the [previous] Christmas I was at World Juniors, so I didn’t get to go home,” McDonagh said. “So this year I was excited to get home for a week or so and play outside with all my buddies and high school teammates. It was awesome.”
Pond hockey is a game that doesn’t quite have the appeal of backyard football or street basketball. All you need for the latter two is some pavement or a field and a ball. Ice hockey necessitates everyone have skates, sticks and pucks.
But for many of those in the northern part of the continent, winter meant outdoor hockey. And despite the abundance of indoor rinks with controlled climates and Zambonis to fix the ice, many Badgers hold a fondness for the outdoor game.
“Growing up, I always played outdoors. My best buddy had a rink and I remember nights we’d stay out there until 3 a.m.,” sophomore center Derek Stepan, a native of Hastings, Minn. said.
“My first house, I lived there until I was about four or five. My dad built a rink in the backyard every year, and we’d go out all the time as a little kid and just scoot around and stuff,” McDonagh, another Minnesota native said. “But it was still fun, I still remember it now.”
Family is a common theme in many UW players’ love for hockey. Many players on the women’s team mentioned that hockey is really a family affair, whether it was fathers or siblings. From learning the game from older brothers to having a sister as a teammate next year, the game is surrounded by families.
For Kyla Sanders, even a lack of ice wasn’t enough to deter her from hockey. The forward from warm, sunny Fort Myers, Fla., started playing because of her brothers.
“I actually watched my brothers play first, and I wanted to be just like them so I started playing. We started playing roller hockey first and transferred over to ice hockey,” Sanders said.
Defenseman Geena Prough shared a similar story about following in her brothers’ footsteps at a young age. As a kid, Prough, a native of Farmington, Mich., felt she “had to do everything they did,” so she started playing hockey as well. Even forward Brianna Decker noted learning hockey from her brothers.
“I started playing hockey because my brothers played and they basically taught me how to play on the pond outside,” Decker said. “Also there was this outdoor rink near our house so in the winter we skated out there.”
With the Camp Randall Hockey Classic coming up this Saturday, what better time to wax poetic about the appeal of outdoor hockey?
Baseball fans often claim the game was meant to be played outside — resulting in an outdoor stadium in Minnesota where there might still be snow on the ground come April. Football teams that play in domes continue to have an advantage over teams that play outdoors, mainly due to the noise factor.
But something different happens when hockey is played outside.
According to SportsBusinessDaily.com, the average NHL arena has a capacity of 18,443 fans and according to the NHL, average attendance last season was 17,460 fans per game. The UW men’s team led the NCAA in average home attendance last season, with an average of 13,785. Most Division I programs averaged somewhere between 2,000-5,000 fans per game.
But they say “if you build it, they will come,” and when given the opportunity to offer more seats, hockey teams have taken full advantage.
In a game dubbed, “The Cold War,” 74,554 people jammed into Spartan Stadium in East Lansing, Mich. for the first modern outdoor NCAA hockey game, back in 2001. Michigan State and rival Michigan would skate to a 3-3 tie in what is still the NCAA attendance record for a men’s hockey game.
When the NHL decided to start a Winter Classic outdoor game to be played New Year’s Day, it helped foster interest in a sport hurt by its 2005-2006 lockout. The Pittsburgh Penguins and Buffalo Sabres set a new NHL attendance record on Jan. 1, 2008, at 71,217. Almost 41,000 people packed into Chicago’s Wrigley Field for the 2009 Winter Classic and 38,112 fans attended this year’s edition of the game at Boston’s Fenway Park.
So what makes outdoor hockey so much more interesting?
“It’s old-time hockey. The best way to say it is, people in the old days remember how they used to play outdoors and it’s fun to watch,” Stepan said. “It’s fun to go outside and be all bundled up and watch a hockey game with some of your closest friends. Pretty much it’s an excuse to have a good time.”
“It brings you back to your childhood, when we’d go to the backdoor rinks and just play around, just scrimmage,” Ontario, Canada native Brendan Smith said.
That nostalgia isn’t lost on UW men’s head coach Mike Eaves. In his press conference Monday, he mentioned the innocence and fun associated with outdoor hockey.
“There was a commercial done by Neal Broten on TV in Minnesota, and he was trying to describe this… and he’s looking on out into the distance,” Eaves said. “He says, if I could go back to 8 years old, I’d go back in a heartbeat. And he meant it because of what it brings back, the joy, the pure joy of being outside and playing the game.”
The more playful nature of pickup games also gives players an opportunity to do things they wouldn’t do in league play. For Smith, normally a defenseman, one of his best outdoor hockey memories wasn’t even close to one of his best moments.
“I guess one time, I played goalie and it was really difficult, so I’ll say the one time I strapped on the pads over at Sam Gagner’s,” he said. “That would be one of the biggest memories — I made a few big saves, but was ultimately terrible.”
For a sport that often requires dedication and enough money to afford sticks, pads and other equipment, stripping it down to the basics seems to give it an allure that young and old alike can enjoy. Why else would the U.S. Pond Hockey Championships attract 253 teams, including divisions for people 50+, a women’s division and a youth bracket?
For McDonagh, getting away from the strict organization that accompanies practices inside arenas is beneficial. So long as it’s winter, the ice is always open and you’re free to do whatever.
“You can go outside seven days a week, the lights are until 11, sometimes later,” he said. “There’s more opportunity to get away from the systems… that you do in practice. You get outside, you can do puck skills and learn little moves and work on your shot and stuff like that. All that stuff’s really valuable.”
What began on a pond or backyard rink translated into not only success for these athletes, but a way of life. Playing one sport for the almost their entire lives, the squad has experienced a lot through hockey — things they might not had the chance to if they did not survive the blood and sweat.
“It’s really taught me a lot of life lessons — how to compete, how to be a good sport,” Prough said. “I’ve gone through a lot of adversity with hockey and you have to learn how to work through the tough times. I think that all assimilates to real life. I’ve learned a lot from hockey.”
“It’s been an unbelievable experience,” sophomore Brooke Ammerman said. “It’s taken me places I probably would have never gone. I’ve played in some pretty special games like the national championship game and even the U18 world championships. It’s just been great.”
Of course, not all of the U.S. gets to enjoy the joys of outdoor hockey. Even fewer people actually end up playing competitively, due to the large time commitment and cost of equipment — as Stepan said, “it’s a rich man’s game.” But if it got a little colder a little further south, Smith thinks the opportunity to play outside for fun would convince more kids to make the sacrifice.
“Oh for sure, those are the best times, those are what gets everybody into hockey. You always just [pretend] you’re playing the Stanley Cup game, and it’s tied in overtime,” Smith said. “If more people down south got to get that experience of playing in an outdoor rink and… three-on-three or two-on-two even, I think there would be a lot more of an attraction.”
The immensity of Saturday’s event — attendance should be around 50,000, as ticket sales are currently just over 48,000 — should do nothing but help the sport. For Prough, it’s certainly a step up from playing in the backyard with her brothers.
“This will be the first real game outside,” she said. “I’ve definitely played a lot of pond hockey growing up, but I don’t think anything is going to top this.”
