Cold, hard truth is first Heritage Classic set standard for NHL's outdoor games

EDMONTON — It was so cold at that original Heritage Classic that even the two-beer limit was called into question. 

As in, if you walked away from the Commonwealth Stadium concession back on Nov. 22, 2003, with your allotment of two beers, you had about five minutes to down the first one. Because if you took more time, the second one began to freeze over. 

Cold? 

The temperature just after 3 p.m., when the oldtimers game between the Edmonton Oilers and Montreal Canadiens greats began, was minus-16.8 Celsius. It fell to minus-18.6 when the NHL game between Edmonton and Montreal began at 5:26 p.m. under a jet-black Alberta winter sky. 

Even though capacity had been listed at just over 56,000, some 57,167 fans crammed into Commonwealth for a day-night doubleheader, the coldest ever played under the NHL banner. 

“I don’t know how they do it,” then-Oilers general manager Kevin Lowe marvelled afterward. “I think it’s the fans making a statement that, ‘Hey, this is where we live. It’s cold at times in the wintertime, but you’ve got to go on and live your life.’” 

By Edmonton terms, it was the coldest Western final in some years and lasted twice as long. But when it was done, Northern Albertans had shown the National Hockey League that an event of this type had legs. 

Little did we know that this goofy idea, led by the Oilers and, at times, merely tolerated by the NHL, would lead to games in Lake Tahoe, the Cotton Bowl and Dodger Stadium. But five years later, there was Sidney Crosby, scoring a breakaway goal in a Buffalo snowstorm, and a year after that, the Chicago Blackhawks were hosting the Detroit Red Wings at hallowed Wrigley Field. 

This Sunday, the NHL’s Stadium Series comes full circle, arriving back at Commonwealth 20 years later for a game between two struggling Alberta clubs, the Oilers and the Calgary Flames. It will be the 24^th outdoor game since the Habs beat Edmonton 4-3 in a game that had more impact than anyone could have realized. 

Did anyone see, two decades ago, the NHL’s outdoor fetish coming? 

“Not going into it,” admitted Shawn Horcoff, the current Red Wings assistant general manager who played for Edmonton that day. “But quickly after it was done, you could see it was something the league could run with. The players enjoyed it, the fans liked it, the media loved it ...

“After it was complete and you sat back and thought about it, it was really a no-brainer.” 

But what if the game had never come off? 

Would the franchise have thrived the way it has, had the league pulled the plug that day, when it was freezing cold and the mercury was dropping? 

In the end, that old show-business motto, “The show must go on,” won the day. With nearly 60,000 folks in the seats, committed to a frozen, eight-hour day of hockey, who was going to stand behind a microphone and tell them that the NHL players were too fragile to join them? 

“That is why it wasn’t cancelled,” said Georges Laraque, the Oilers heavyweight of the day. “It wasn’t the ideal scenario, but it was the first one and it would have been a catastrophe to cancel it. There was no avenue as to what we were going to do if it were cancelled.” 

Set for nearly a month earlier on the calendar, Oct. 29, Sunday’s forecast is for a low of minus-6 Celsius, with a high of plus-3. But in 2003, organizers were intentionally vague about any cut-off or cancellation temperature, as the mercury plunged late in a Northern Alberta November. 

“It was an NHL game. Points were at stake,” Horcoff said. “So, each guy was going through what they needed to do to feel comfortable out there. Some guys wore turtlenecks, some guys wore balaclavas, some guys wore gloves (underneath their hockey gloves). We had those hot pockets in our skates, like ski boots. So, there was a lot of messing around for guys, trying to feel comfortable. 

“We knew how cold it was going to be on the ice, but what we didn’t prepare for was how warm it was going to be on the bench. They had these big heaters pumping all this warm air. You’d go on the ice and it was freezing cold, then you’d come back to the bench and it was super warm.” 

“I can tell you this,” added Laraque. “It was the first time when I played a game that people were happy to be on the bench.” 

They didn’t come any tougher than Laraque circa 2003. But there was no way the mitts were hitting the ice that day. 

“Darren Langdon, the tough guy on the other side, we looked at one another and we were like, ‘No (bleeping) way,’" he said. "We are not dropping the gloves at minus-20.” 

Remember, this was before the state-of-the-art ice plant the NHL has purchased for these outdoor games. While Sunday’s ice will be very similar to what the players skate on all season long, back then it was chippy and poor. It wasn’t supposed be this cold. 

“I have to hand it to those people who (built the rink), but the ice, it was terrible,” Oilers defenceman Marc-Andre Bergeron said after the game. “It was sh---- hockey tonight, no doubt about that. Not any finesse plays tonight, for sure. Dump it in, rim it around, then go and get it.” 

Nobody remembers the bad ice or the slushy beers, however. Instead, goalie Jose Theodore’s tuque that he wore through the entire game was the beacon for how outdoor hockey was as pure as the driven slow, whether played in a football stadium, a ballpark or a lake in California. 

And as legendary hockey writer Red Fisher sipped Chivas Regal from a Styrofoam cup in the Commonwealth press box, the Stadium Series was born. 

It came out a little cold, but we’ve warmed to it now.