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NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE MEDIA CONFERENCE

December 14, 2009

THE MODERATOR: Just want to welcome everyone to the 2010 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic. We have two pieces to today's media briefing. First, we're going to hear from former Bruin Hall of Famer Ray Bourque, and Priscilla Brown, who is the chief marketing officer for Sun Life, and they're going to talk about some community initiatives that the city is putting on.
We'll have Ray and Priscilla make comments, then go to a Q&A. Following that, we will have Dan Craig up to make his daily NHL Winter Classic briefing update.
I'll ask Ray to take the podium.
RAY BOURQUE: Thank you. I am not going into politics. I just know what the mayor is going through, and he's on the IR. I'm here to fill in for the mayor.
I want to thank Mayor Menino and Sun Life Financial and the NHL for asking me to take part in a special announcement today. The mayor wants people to know that he's doing well and will be back soon. But we're here for this main event that is going to be taking place New Year's Day 2010, the Winter Classic matchup between the Bruins and the Flyers. Should be an incredible event.
But the teams won't be the only people that will have a chance to skate on this one?of?a?kind NHL ice surface here at Fenway. The NHL and Fenway and Mayor Menino is making it possible for thousands of kids and families living in the City of Boston to share the experience of skating outdoors on an NHL rink. Just days after the NHL Winter Classic on Sunday, January 3rd, and the 10th, children and families from every neighborhood around the city will have a chance to enjoy what so many young hockey players love to do, and that's skating outdoors.
But instead of a frozen pond for a backdrop, you'll have the Green Monster. Just knowing the history that goes along with this amazing ballpark, it will be an incredible experience, I'm sure.
No better city in America to host this game. And there's no reason why countless fans in Boston shouldn't have a shot at making their own once?in?a?lifetime memories.
Free public skating will recognize the spirit of hockey and the great history of this sport and this city. It's also a celebration for the City of Boston inaugural event to take place on Monday, January 4th. Mayor Menino and newly elected Boston city councilors will be sworn into office on January 4th. This free public skating is just one of many events that the city is coordinating and recognizing on this special day.
Getting tickets to skate at Fenway is simple. Just visit one of many community centers that will be offering tickets on Saturday, December 19th, from 9 a.m. till 11 a.m. Just make sure to bring proof of residency and get there early because there will be quite a crowd, I'm sure. For all the details and complete ticket locations, visit www.CityofBoston.gov. Don't miss your chance to skate on this beautiful rink. Happy holidays to all and thanks for coming.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Ray.
Now I'll introduce Priscilla Brown on behalf of Sun Life.
PRISCILLA BROWN: Hello, everybody. Well, when Sun Life was asked to be a part of this amazing event, we couldn't be more excited. What we're excited about is not just that the Bruins are going to get a chance to skate on the ice at Fenway, but that everyone in the community has an opportunity, that will include disadvantaged youth, youth across the city, organizations that have done good work in the city. It will even include our employees, and we're excited about that.
I won't go through the details because I think Ray covered them really well. I just want to thank a number of people who made this possible. That includes Mayor Menino of Boston, it includes Ray Bourque, who is giving of his time, and certainly is a legend in this city, it includes the National Hockey League, the Hockey East Association, the Red Sox, and Fenway Sports Group. So to all of our partners in this, to all of the kids across the city who we hope will have a chance to skate in front of the Green Monster, have a good time. We hope this will be a Christmas season to remember. Thank you for coming.

Q. Ray, just wanted to ask you about playing outdoors as a kid. Any memories from MontrÃ©al in that regard?
RAY BOURQUE: Many, many. That's where it all started for me. I skated outdoors before I skated indoors in terms of even playing games or playing for a team. So I go way back.
But there was nothing like it. The experience that the guys and the kids and families are going to have skating outdoors here at Fenway under this environment, I am so jealous. I'll get out there on Friday, but to play in that game on the 1st, man, that would have been so much fun.

Q. Ray, when you played 20 plus years here in Boston, did you ever allow yourself to think of the potential for an outdoor game at Fenway Park? What do you think of the Winter Classic phenomenon that has sprouted up over the last three years?
RAY BOURQUE: I think it's incredible, the momentum that it's gathered through the years. I remember the first one that took place in Edmonton between the Oilers and the Canadiens, how cold it was just watching that game from home.
No, it's really been a home run I think for the NHL in terms of exposing the game to so many more fans. So many people jumped in that game, watching it on the 1st, because there's no other game played during the regular season similar to that. Last year Wrigley Field, then they had the game in Buffalo at the stadium where they had to stop the game so often just to get the snow off the ice. That probably was a pain in the butt, but it was just different to watch.
Some of the elements you can't control with this outdoors game, who knows how it's going to be on the 1st. But expecting maybe a little overcast, mid 30s would be the perfect temperature. I'm no expert, but as a player, that's what I'd be wishing for. It would be fun to play in that one for sure.
What it's created, what it's done for the NHL and hockey in general, like I said, it's been a home run over the Green Monster.

Q. Did you ever allow yourself to think about the potential for an outdoor game at Fenway when you were playing?
RAY BOURQUE: No, I never even went there. You didn't even think about an outdoor game. So just the foresight, the thinking, how things have progressed, trying to expose the game, you know, they're always looking for new ways to do that. I think this is a great way to do it.

Q. Ray, from what you've seen so far, what do you think of how it looks?
RAY BOURQUE: I'll tell you in about 15 minutes (laughter). No, I haven't had a chance to see it yet. But before I leave today, I'll get out there and have a look.
Like I said, Friday I'll be part of the festivities of going out there with some of the alumni, kids, to skate. I'm really looking forward to that. That will be fun. It will bring me back to my childhood days. Even when I get a chance to go home in MontrÃ©al over Christmas, just to get out there and skate with the kids, there's nothing like it, skating outdoors. I'm sure it's going to look great.

Q. From your childhood days, what were those games like? Where did you skate? Was it a pond or an actual rink? What were the games like? How many people were involved?
RAY BOURQUE: You know, I didn't skate on ponds so much. My hometown probably had a hockey rink, then another little rink for short boards for people to skate without hockey stuff, so you had a rink every couple of miles. So wherever you lived in my hometown, you could just walk. I'd skate to the park with my skates and little things protecting my blades. I'd just walk to the park, get on the ice, get home, meet up with my buddies after school.
The league I did play in for my little area would be playing against probably six other teams in my hometown. It was called the Termites. When I started, I was probably like five or six years old. Then I had Mosquito Hockey. Once I had Mosquito Hockey, seven to eight years old, after that, there were a couple of indoor rinks built in my hometown that I'd skate outdoors after school just for fun with my friends.

Q. Any NHL players you ended up playing against in the NHL that you remember that you saw out there at any level?
RAY BOURQUE: My hometown, we had my brother and a couple of my buddies that got drafted to the NHL or played junior hockey at a really high level. But I'm the only one that actually played NHL games. But they're good players. They were all from the same little area. It's pretty funny how the four of us kind of went pretty far hockey?wise.
My brother was actually drafted by the Bruins and came to camp a couple years, but that was it.
THE MODERATOR: I want to thank Ray and Priscilla for coming today. I also want to thank Mayor Menino and the City of Boston for making this possible.
We'll bring up Dan Craig now, the NHL facilities operations manager. Dan will give a brief update on the rink construction and then we'll go to a quick Q&A.
DAN CRAIG: Good afternoon. We're well on our way here today for getting the rink under construction. We just finished a break for lunch. The rink pans are about three?quarters of the way down. The one side of the board system will be put up this afternoon. We'll be hooked up from the core to the main truck early tomorrow morning, at the very latest by tomorrow afternoon, then we'll start circulating the solution through the floor.
We've had two awesome days for construction here. You see a couple of my ice crew out there that look like they just came from the Bahamas, they've been sitting out there getting a reflection off the ice pans from this beautiful day in Boston.
Just for information, the web cam is not broken. I did get a call from my wife wanting to know how come she couldn't see anything happening on the field. I said, Because Sunday there was nothing happening. We were waiting to offload on Monday. That's how good everything went for the first three days of setup.
Questions?

Q. Has this weather put you ahead of schedule actually?
DAN CRAIG: No, it's not ahead of schedule. As a matter of fact, it's pretty funny this morning, because of the rain, the dip in the temperature first thing this morning, there was a little crust of ice on top of the subfloor that took about an hour to get off. While that hour was happening, we were opening up doors, getting our trucks, the winches, off to offload the main floor panels.
We're right where we're supposed to be. We figure by 6:00 tonight everything will be fairly well in place and then we'll just be putting parts and pieces, tying them all together.

Q. Dan, what is the highest off the field that the ice surface will be at any point? I understand Fenway is crowned in the middle a little bit.
DAN CRAIG: It's not so much in the middle, it's on first and third as it kind of drops away there. Our highest level is less than six inches off the main field itself. That's where the ice surface will be.
We tried to keep it down as low and as tight as we could. We're able to get everybody as far down on the rows of seating to be able to view the game.

Q. How psyched are you right now just to sort of really get it going?
DAN CRAIG: You're wasting my time here is what you're doing (laughter). That's how psyched I am. Get me out there, get me going.
Yeah, we're pumped. We had a little bit of a delay because you know the weather last night, some of the guys didn't get in until almost 10:00 last night. 6:00 this morning they were standing in the lobby ready to get at it. The crew is here.
We're ready to put on such a great event here. The more this thing comes together, the more atmosphere it has created out on the field. You come here, first thing in the morning, the security, everybody is so friendly, they're excited to have us walk through the door. It's awesome.

Q. Have you gotten to visit the city at all or have you been too busy?
DAN CRAIG: It's not that I've been too busy. We did a little bit of a walk yesterday, nothing serious. But a lot of the things you spend a lot of time on, reviewing the drawings, information you know has been right for six months, but you want to make sure now that you're six hours away from doing certain things that everything is exactly what it needs to be. There will be time for visiting the city once everything is built and I see everybody in the city skating on this great pond.

Q. So much goes into this preparation, such a big event, yet your real job at the NHL until this event came along has been to sort of be the conscience of all the ice makers. When complaints come up across the league, do you find it more related to maintenance and not a proper window for installation? Is it maintaining good ice or making good ice to start with, what seems to be the biggest thing?
DAN CRAIG: Wow, there's so many different variables because of the different climates, features that we have from different buildings, the buildings, activities within the buildings. Maintenance is a big part of anything that you do on an ice surface, on a game day, pregame days. As you know, there's a lot of facilities that we have NBA, we have a lot of circuses, multi?purpose facilities.
What has happened probably in the last eight years now is that there's been a lot of new materials come out that we put on top of the ice surface, quick change, we have better instrumentation to monitor the systems. Like right now, my system that is here is only halfway set up because we don't have ice yet.
But I have a system where I have probes laying down underneath the installation so I can talk to Dave, the groundskeeper here, to let him know what the subsoil is right underneath. I know what the pan temperature is. I'll know what the surface temperature is. I know what the humidity is. That feature only came to me two years ago. So every year we get better within the industry.
We have good mechanics out on the truck. They're from a major company. They're always looking for new instrumentation that we can use to improve ourselves each and every day.

Q. Up in Maine, they said they skated on the best ice they'd ever seen. He grew up around here. Asked, What was it? He said, We don't put any additives in the water. Is there any importance to that?
DAN CRAIG: Yes. There are so many different crucial elements, and water is a major one. I know there are certain areas within the country that have to have treatment, and yet there's certain areas that you turn on the tap water and that's what you have.
One of the things, especially for myself, and the city knows because as taxpayers you know that the water treatment has come so far in 15 years. So it's not like we're not using the same source water that we used 20 years ago. If you can drink it, I definitely can make a good sheet of ice out of it.
THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Dan. Again, thanks to Ray and Priscilla for coming and making the announcement, the City of Boston, Mayor Menino's office.

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