Frozen Fenway is a concept that started in 2009 when Fenway introduced its first hockey rink inside the park in its history of over one hundred years. This was part of the NHL’s Winter Classic Stadium Series that at first featured some of the NHL’s most historic franchises dueling it out in the freezing cold weather on New Year's Day. The series has seen some terrific venues such as Heinz Field in Pittsburg, Citizens Bank Park in Philly and and Wrigley Field in Chicago. The problem with those stadiums is once the game happened, there was no other games to play. However, Fenway Park made it different. After the first game in 2009, Fenway decided they wanted to make this strange game an annual occurrence. Every year since then Fenway has hosted some of the area's best college hockey teams as well as some high school teams. They even allow an open skate for guests to skate in Fenway’s ice rink.
Some people may ask the question: why would someone want to spend their day in the middle of winter watching a hockey game outside? New Englanders packed Fenway Park as they were ready to watch not one, but two games of hockey be played. Fenway offers a double header event, which allows you to buy one ticket but stay for both games. This is why people from outside of the area never truly understand people from New England. Who in their right mind would ever want to watch seven hours of hockey in 15 degree weather? The answer is mostly all New England sports fans.
Being a big Boston sports fan living in the city, I decided to check the event out. It was amazing how the Fenway crew was able to make it feel like there was a baseball game to be played in the middle of December. You could smell the aroma of sausages from Yawkey Way before you even walked in. The loud soda sellers in the yellow shirts replaced their Coke with hot chocolate. The atmosphere was amazing. Fans of all four teams were beaming with their school pride. Whether they were students, alumni or just fans, all four fan sections were loud and supportive. The atmosphere was truly fantastic, really showing the love of the sport as well as the colleges. Fenway did a phenomenal job setting everything up, from the food in the stands all the way down to the ice on the rink. It made sitting in the cold for seven hours completely worth it. However, it would have been nice if the game was played the day before, in which it was 50 degrees. But that's just how Boston is.
