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NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE MEDIA CONFERENCE

December 10, 2009

JAMEY HORAN: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Jamey Horan. I'm the vice president of NHL communications. I want to thank everyone for being here today at historic Fenway Park and the home of 2010 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic. I first want to say thank you to the Boston Bruins, the Boston Red Sox, the Philadelphia Flyers and the city of Boston for teaming up with us on this year's event. Their help thus far has been great and will be essential for the success of the event moving forward.
I think Commissioner Bettman summed it up the best in July during the July announcement out here at Fenway by saying on New Year's Day the city of Boston and Fenway Park will be at the center of the hockey universe. In three years the Winter Classic has become a hallmark event for the NHL regular season, and without question has earned a prominent place in USA sports programming. I guess simply stated the game returns to its purest form, outside.
For those of us working on the Winter Classic, today is an exciting day as we start the transformation of the ballpark into a hockey rink. Two gentlemen that are going to play a massive role in that process are Don Renzulli, NHL senior vice president for events, and Dan Craig, NHL facilities operations manager. Don had spent 12 years in the NFL, worked on 10 Super Bowls, and has been here for two years with us at the NHL and has worked on both Winter Classics. Dan Craig, as many of you know, has been in the ice industry for 38 years, 10 with the Edmonton Oilers and 12 with the National Hockey League.
So we're going to ask both Dan and Don to make some comments on the buildout, get their thoughts, and then we'll go to a Q & A after. I'll ask Don to take the mic.
DON RENZULLI: Good afternoon. Welcome to Fenway Park and the third Winter Classic. We're excited to be here. Before we get started, a few people I want to thank. Obviously the Boston Red Sox and their entire organization, Larry Lucchino, Sam Kennedy and Jonathan Gilula, who have been instrumental in bringing this game here and working with us throughout the year.
We've been pretty successful in the first two years looking back at Buffalo and then last year in Chicago, and when Dan and I were talking at lunch today, and we looked back at Buffalo, and we made this announcement of that game back in the middle of September. It really gave us three and a half months to pull that game together. We say, what were we thinking?
This thing has become fairly large in short period of time. We've put a lot of time and effort into making this something special. The fans have gravitated towards it, and I think the NHL is really proud to have something that stands alone on New Year's Day.
When we walked into Buffalo, we walked into some nasty weather. We walked into a day that was sunshine and 50 degrees. There was a football game; the Giants were playing the Bills. By the third quarter it was snowing. By the end of the game, we were removing goal posts and Dan started his buildout, and we had 60?mile?an?hour winds, we had plywood flying through the air, we had tarps all over, and we had to stop right then and there.
We regrouped, got together Christmas Eve and we really put it together. We had lousy weather throughout, and then I think that weather came back to us on game day where we had snow. So for the fans it was great. Not so much for Dan because he spent a lot of time out there, but it was magical and it really brought the fans together.
I think we came out of a football stadium where I had a lot of experience to a baseball stadium, a 96?year?old stadium at Wrigley, which was really the first time for me into a baseball park. We spent a lot of time really understanding how we could configure the rink, what were the best sight lines, how we were going to pull it off in a stadium that didn't have heat and no water running that time of year. So we had a lot of issues to deal with, and it turned out to be something spectacular come game day.
When you looked out and saw the people on the rooftops, when you saw the people in the stadium all dressed in their NHL garb, it was pretty special.
And now we're here at Fenway, which is another magical park. When you look out at the Monster and how this plays into this whole thing, it should be pretty special.
We've tried to integrate a lot of the special pieces of the stadium in our setup. We've tried to configure the rink in a way that people can get as close as possible. It's the same configuration as last year, first to third. I think if you look out there after we get out of here, you'll start to see it's starting to take shape already in day one.
It's really come to be something that we're all proud of at the NHL, and I think as you see game day, all around it's going to be something special.
Year one we really just had a game. We just had a little party prior to the game. Last year we expanded a little more and we stretched it out until Christmas Eve ?? excuse me, New Year's Eve. This year we're going to do the same. We're going to have Spectator Plaza, along with Mayor Menino and the City of Boston, and 82 Brookline is where we're going to set up a big interactive hockey theme park. On the 31st we're going to have practice here in the stadium, which is closed to fans, but we'll broadcast it out there. We'll have musical acts, we'll have Bruins alumni we'll have a bunch of people, and that'll go from I think 11:00 to 4:00 on the 31st and then again on game day from 9:00 to when the game starts at 1:00, so we are looking forward to that.
Year one we sold out this game, and nobody knew what it was, in 20 minutes. Last year we had 240,000 people looking for tickets. This year when we went out with our lottery, we had almost 310,000 people. The demand is there, people want to see it, and it's something that college football has kind of left us a window open, and we kind of jumped in there on New Year's Day, and hopefully you'll all agree come the 1st.
I will answer any questions at the end, but we look forward to a really great day come January 1st. Thanks.
DAN CRAIG: I don't think we need an introduction. I know all my great friends here in the media. They kind of greeted me with open arms here in Boston as the truck rolled up here about a half hour ago. I'd just like to, like Don said, thank quite a few people from the City of Boston, from the Red Sox to the Bruins, and then visiting team of the Philadelphia Flyers coming here. It's going to be quite a spectacular event, two very competitive teams, and I'd also like to thank ?? you see a lot of people working out on the field. We have a really great production company that works alongside of us, plus as you noticed the transportation company that brings in our refrigeration trailer plus all of the other equipment, boards, glass. Our other panels for the ice bar will be coming in, as well, so we have a really great nucleus of people that have come together in the past three years.
We've been working really well together, and every time that we do this, we are just gaining more and more confidence on how this is to be done and to get the quality of ice that we require for an NHL regular season game.
And that's my main goal within the National Hockey League is every single day is to make sure our games are played to the utmost and top quality ice surface around the world, because we do have the best players in the world playing in our league, and that's what we want to bring here to Fenway Park.
As Jamey knows, right from day one, as Mr. Bettman said, the hockey universe will be looking on this crown jewel right here, and what a fabulous stadium that we have to work in. I mean, you come in here, you just get chills. Just as a sports person, I just get chills to even think that we're able to come in here and have such a great event.
What we have going on right now is we have the basic lower construction happening on the field right now where we're building roads so that we can just keep all of our equipment off the turf as much as we possibly can, and by tomorrow morning at this time you will see the full outline of the rink with three inches of insulation underneath and a full armor deck top so that when we roll in here on Monday we can put our ice panels down.
Our ice panels are going to be offloaded. They are 30 feet long by 30 inches wide, and they interlock together. And that's where the glycol is, and the main header pipes coming from the main truck to the floor will be six inches and will be running over 2,000 gallons of glycol through there every minute in case we have a warm day, similar to what we have today, and we don't even classify this as warm, but we make sure we have maximum capacity if we happen to have a warm, sunny day, that we can keep this ice surface as pristine as we possibly can.
The armor deck that we're using, we have over 55,000 square feet, very close to 60,000 square feet of armor deck going all over the field to protect the field. What I was saying is we are coming in here from the National Hockey League and showing this grand stadium, this grand ballpark, the utmost respect, the same as I would expect somebody if they came into any of our NHL facilities to show respect to our game, and that's why we're working with the grounds crew here, the facility operations people here. We're working very closely to make sure that everything is taken care of, so when we leave, it's like we were never here, and that's how we like to leave it.
Ice making will happen next Wednesday and Thursday, and we're not going to be painting the sheet of ice until after Christmas. One of the things that we're going to be doing is making sure that we have a nice stable base down there, taking our time. Patience is one of the things that is number one on our list that we tell the guys when we get up in the morning. We don't rush through anything. We don't go out there and lay down 1,000 gallons of water and turn around and go get a coffee. The guys are out there, they're on the hoses, and they're on the hoses constantly for 16 hours, just fine sprays back and forth for 16 hours in a given day.
And then what we're going to be doing is just putting down minimum markings, and then after Christmas we'll be doing the full white sheet with our full logos and hockey markings. We'll be ready for our media skate, which I'm hoping that everybody will come out to, on the 30th, and then on the 31st we'll have team practices.
And then on January 1, 1:00, we're going to be playing the greatest game that you can possibly play outdoors in my mind. So thank you, and everybody have a good time.
JAMEY HORAN: We'll take questions for Dan and Don now. We've got a wireless mic and we have some folks on the phone that are listening, so if you'd like to ask questions just kindly wait for the mic and please address your question to Dan or Don.

Q. Without getting too technical, how does the sun ?? what sort of challenge does that give you, because I know the glycol, you vary it and everything. If we have a sunny day out there, and I saw it a little while ago, it's kind of like half the rink would be in the sun and half in the shade. How do you handle that?
DAN CRAIG: If you go out there right now, we're pulling shade. At 1:22 it's fully in shade. That's one of the things that today we got up and we were leaving the hotel, and that's exactly what I was doing is I was trying to find out what day it was and where the sun will be, because after the shortest day on the 21st I want to reverse it and find out exactly where it is, because we were here a week ago, and all it was doing was affecting one corner, and it affected one corner for about 20 minutes.
So that is one of the unique things about this rink compared to where we were last year. Last year we were hoping for a nice overcast day, which we got, and so here it's not going to really play an issue on us at all. It's one corner of the rink, and it'll be very minimal. It's not going to affect the ice surface at all.

Q. Mr. Craig, I was wondering if you've met Dave Miller, the Red Sox' groundskeeper.
DAN CRAIG: Yes, as a matter of fact I was going to go have a cup of coffee with him this morning, but I unfortunately got pulled off, and as you guys probably know, in 13 or 14 different directions before I was able to get my coffee with him. But I stopped by his office and said good morning to him and his crew. So yeah, we have a good working relationship.

Q. My question would be then you're somebody whose field of expertise is ice. His is grass and turf and he's very eccentric about it, as I assume you are. In that spirit is there a lot of commonality between the two of you?
DAN CRAIG: Very much so. That was one of the main things when we started the process of coming into this stadium is there's a lot of things that are done in boardrooms and so on, and the thing is for us to be able to have a game that we need, we need to make sure that when we leave here, like I said, we don't even want them to know that we were here. We work very closely with him and his crew, listened to what his requirements were. That's why we have the extra insulation and making sure that the whole infield is taken care of.

Q. For both Dan and Don, in terms of logistics and in terms of infrastructure and in terms of just building the rink, talk about some of the specific examples in terms of unique challenges that you have here at Fenway that you've already planned for heading into this.
DON RENZULLI: Having gone into a baseball stadium last year, something almost as old as this one, we learned a lot. Now, where we had issues last year was mainly on keeping the ballpark warm so we had running water. The Red Sox have worked, and obviously with all the construction over the last couple of years, have constructed areas where they can keep areas warm. So between the dugouts on that lower concourse there's heat running right now that will run through game day, mainly keeps running water going, keeps the bathrooms open, things like that.
We've worked with Aramark to understand how we can pour beer and soda that usually come out of taps. So in those areas we'll keep them running, and in those areas where we can't, we'll pour bottles or cans, something we had to do last year. The toughest part there is really getting extra product to those stands during the game. We've gone to the city and we've asked that Yawkey Way maintain being closed and open to the ballpark game day because what you have at a baseball game is 17 or 18 breaks during the course of the game so people can get up and go to the bathroom and get their concessions. Here you have two 20?minute breaks, and what we learned last year, the concourses were just body to body. So that helps us expand.
So each year we're learning a little bit more with these stadiums. I think as we move on and whether we go to newer stadiums that have more amenities, it changes the dynamic. If you look back at Buffalo we had large clubs where could seat a lot of people, a lot of suites, unlike the baseball stadium, so it's just a little bit different.
I think from the field bank, and probably we can talk about that, but the one big thing going back to Dave Miller that I'll probably say is we spent a lot of time understanding his concerns and Dan's concerns. We worked together hand in hand to come up with a system that we think works for both parties. That armor deck is something we didn't use last year. It's a new product that we found that distributes weight.
The way the field is laid out for drainage, we have to level it, and we did that with Styrofoam, something that we can insulate the field with. So we're trying to do all the things to maintain the field.
There's just one thing that's out there that we can't control, and that's mother nature. As much as we prepared for it last year, I think we were pretty good until two days after Christmas when it became 65 degrees and the eight inches of snow just kind of disappeared in the stadium, and that's when we had problems with the field.
But I think we've taken all the precautions that we can both take on both sides to make this a great game.
DAN CRAIG: I think it's not even a challenge, it's one of the big things ?? the differences here is where we're positioning the truck. Our truck is closer to our rink than where we were in Chicago, so our return is a lot quicker going back into the compressor. So if we have a warm day it's not a concern.
Being that we have such a short run, we are able to go with just a single six?inch line instead of a double six?inch line that we did last year to make sure that everything was taken care of the way it was supposed to. Like Don said, off of first and third is where poles laid for drainage, that is all taken care of so we don't have any problems at the end of the rinks with building a thicker sheet of ice there. So the biggest one ?? the biggest difference is how much closer we are to the rink.

Q. Don, looking at this event, Buffalo, the snow at the event, Wrigley, the people hanging from the houses there, do you have a sense of what is going to make Fenway unique? And Dan, if I can ask a separate question, with that big truck out there, I figured this wouldn't have much to do with the guys doing their home rink trying to put that ice together, but when you talked about guys out there for 16 hours with the hoses, it struck me that maybe it's a lot closer to the guys making their backyard rinks than we think.
DON RENZULLI: I think what you see is the Monster is going to play a big part into this, and I think that shot from behind home plate looking out to left field with the Monster as your background shot, we've kind of keyed on that with everything that we've done. I think that's the shot you're going to get, just like we had last year with the rooftops. We've tried to play off of it. You've got center field, which those bleachers are very high. It's actually a tremendous seat sitting out there looking back in because you can see just about everything going on. It's probably the thing that ?? and that's what the Red Sox play off of, too.
DAN CRAIG: Going to the backyard rink, the guys, the crew that is going to be arriving here on Saturday, Sunday and start working on Monday, you will see they're hand picked. They have passion, and it's one of those things where it doesn't matter what hour of the day it is. If we need to be making ice, we'll be out there making ice, just like dad does in the backyard, just like I did with my son. And that's one of those things where you just sit there and you know that Mother Nature will help you, and you get out there, and it's 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, and nothing is more peaceful than being out there at 3:00 in the morning spraying water on a sheet of ice knowing that the best players in the world are going to be out there. It's absolutely fabulous.

Q. Will you actually be trucking in snow like there was in Buffalo and kind of creating that atmosphere? Is that something you have to wait until the end to determine if you have to do that?
DON RENZULLI: Good question. We're prepared either way. The idea with the name Winter Classic is we want that outdoor field. We're going to do everything we can to have snow on the field one way or another. Buffalo created a lot of challenges. We not only hauled it in but we had to haul it out because it was dirty on the front side, so we had to go scrounge up what we could in the neighborhood to bring back in. But we have a snow machine, we have some other things that we'll talk about later if we need to.

Q. When will you make that decision?
DON RENZULLI: Not until after Christmas. We'll look at the extended forecast and see what's coming in.

Q. Mr. Craig, I was reading about you, and you are an expert on ice. I'm curious, I'm sure you've been asked this question a million times, but what did you want to be when you were growing up, and how did you become an expert on ice?
DAN CRAIG: What did I want to be when I was growing up? A hockey player. Stan Johnson was my favorite Bruin, and he was a small guy that played a very tough game. And I wasn't very big in stature, and that's how I played my game, as Jimmy can attest when we played in a couple of pickup games.
You get to an age when you're playing hockey where you realize that professionalism isn't in the cards, and so you look at it and say, what can I do? Because I was playing with some guys that were far better and more talented than me. I grew up being around the rink. I drove the Zamboni for the first time when I was age 16, and I said, this is something that I can do to the best of my ability to improve the game for guys that I watch play. That was my biggest thing.
I know it can be done better, and when we come in and we bring this crew in, we can do better. We can do better than we did last year. We knew we could do better in Buffalo, and when I come out here I'm going to look at the crew again and say we can do better next year. Every day that's what we're doing, we're doing better.

Q. Just wondering, when you first checked out Fenway for this event, what's the first thing that goes through your head that you have to sort of envision or check out, and then I guess fast forwarding to when the event is come, what's the last thing you've got to double check?
DON RENZULLI: The first thing I've got to double check. Wow. Really it's how level the field is and how close we are ?? the truck is going to be to the rink. And the last thing I have to check is how much sleep I'm going to get in the next three weeks.

Q. Don, I'm wondering, I know rain can be the biggest bugaboo to this. If it is pouring, what are the contingencies then in terms of if it actually gets washed out?
DON RENZULLI: Well, rain is just one thing that we've got to think of. We obviously have a postponement date of the 2nd, so we have the same time frame come January 2nd.
There are a number of things that can postpone this game, too many to probably talk about right now. But the biggest thing is the safety of the players and our fans coming out here. We will look at the extended forecast. The idea would be not to bring people into the stadium if we think we can't play on the 1st, so we'd just postpone it to the 2nd, but we'll get Dan and myself and meet with the commissioner, Colie Campbell and others and have that discussion with the GMs of both teams and we'll make that decision.
JAMEY HORAN: Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Dan, Don. Our next media briefing is the 14th, Monday, same time, same process. We'll open Fenway Park from 1:00 to 3:00 for access and then we'll do a 2:00 briefing, and then the next scheduled one is the 17th. Unless we make an announcement of any changes, those are the next media briefings.

End of FastScripts

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