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NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE MEDIA CONFERENCEDecember 29, 2009Dan CraigDon RenzulliDON RENZULLI: Well, most of the stuff outside is pretty much done from a construction standpoint. The last video board went up last night. We are starting to tweak it and fine tune that now. You'll see a lot of decor going up. Like I said yesterday, the entire outside of the building is complete. We are now looking to finish off the inside. We have the building department and all of the city officials coming tomorrow to do our walk?through. So at this point all of the big stuff is done. We are in the tweaking phase now from the game presentation standpoint and everything in the stadium and it is going pretty well. Now it's just, as you can see, we are cleaning up the infield. The infield is all white. We have the snow machine ready to go in case Mother Nature doesn't play with us, and we'll look at it over the course of the next few days to see what we have to do to make this a winter wonderland. DAN CRAIG: From yesterday to today, as you noticed when we were here yesterday, we had a rain storm come through so we had to kind of wait until that one pushed through. And then we did logos last night and we were wrapped up on our logos by nine o'clock last night, and just built ice over the top of the logos and that's what's continuing today. Put both the Zambonis out there, took a dry run on them, trimmed up the ice really nice and now we are ready to go. Q. We hear it might be 40 degrees and rain on Friday morning. What would be the worst?case scenario? What would prompt a cancellation and make it go to Saturday? DON RENZULLI: That was early this morning, now we are looking at light drizzle, temperature dropping. It's kind of too early right now to decide what we are going to do. We have got to finish out our build?out phase and we will continue to monitor the weather. And we are prepared for a number of different issues, and when we get to Thursday, we'll make a call based on the current weather forecast. But right now looks like we'll be good to go and play the game. THE MODERATOR: Following on that, fan and player safety is paramount. So just like all of our 1,230 games, we would not ask fans to come out or put players in a bad predicament on the ice. Q. To follow up on that in terms of when you make a decision that you decide you can't go with this game, I'm assuming that you wouldn't make a decision before Friday, or will you? DON RENZULLI: I think it all depends on the weather forecast. Once the Commissioner gets here, we will meet with him and Dan and Colin Campbell and evaluate what we think the weather is going to be; and if we think there is a good chance we can get this game in, we'll do everything in our power to do that. If they are calling four a foot and a half of snow, itÂ’s a little bit different. Three days out, I think it's kind of hard to make that decision. Q. As a follow?up to that, it is theoretically possible because of the vagaries of the weather that you could fill the ballpark up and not be able to play the game because of weather that comes in after the crowds arrive; that's something you guys have to prepare for; is that correct? DON RENZULLI: Correct. In a perfect situation, we would not want to bring them into the stadium if we knew we couldn't get the game in. And we have to really think hard and really look at the forecast to make that determination. It's not like baseball where you can get in, you know, five and a half innings and it's a full game. We want to play three full periods, and we are going to make the decision based on that. DAN CRAIG: In Buffalo we had some delays and we got the game in with the snow and there's been weather delays in this ballpark before. Q. Dan, how has any rainfall or anything that's happened earlier this week in the game surfaced in the ice itself, and is it changing your preparations as far as the ice goes? DAN CRAIG: Well, every weather system that's come through changes the preparation. Two days ago, it rained really hard all afternoon to about 3:00 or 3:30, and we were set solid by 6:00. So we know what this truck can do, and that's without having to squeegee any water off. Two and a half hours later, it was rock solid. And yesterday, we had rain in the afternoon and within the hour, we were all set. Q. What have you guys learned now; it's your third Winter Classic, a bit of touch?and?go in Buffalo, and it all went well, but there were some stressful moments. What have you guys learned now going into your third one, and what to do and what not to do? DAN CRAIG: For me it's not what you do or don't do; it's the confidence in the staff around us. Both sides here, we have had challenges and needed all hands on deck, and we had two different nights where we had guys working around the clock and they don't even blink at it. They just say, we have to do what we have to do. And both Don and myself have been on the end of shovels and both of us have been ?? I worked around the clock one night, and Don worked probably 20, 22 hours one night. So it's confidence in our staff because we know in the end, we know how great this event is. DON RENZULLI: I think what Dan said ?? I can honestly say I've been a part of all components of this game; I was shoveling. It's a great team effort, and we have a great bunch of people. I think any major event, you're going to have these issues, whether it's football stadiums, baseball stadiums, it doesn't matter. We go in, evaluate it and when you come on site, you deal with it. We have a great staff that really makes the effort to go out and do the things that they have to do, regardless if it's in their job description or not, to make it happen. Q. Both of you spoke with great reverence of Fenway Park when I was here last week. I was wondering if either of you have made any discoveries or anything about the ballpark you could share with us. DAN CRAIG: The hawks that live here, they are awesome. They keep us entertained. The hawks that live here; the hawks that take care of whatever rodents are running around here. And they put on an air show for us yesterday. That is something that, not being from this area, that I understand that they are residents of this ballpark, and it's one of those things that is unique for me. DON RENZULLI: I think as you walk around the stadium, it's the idiosyncrasies of the stadium: The seat widths are all different and the angles are kind of quirky. They obviously play more to baseball than to hockey, and I think that's why we have the video board. So just about anywhere, you can see things; where in the new baseball stadiums, football stadiums, it's all symmetrical and you can see that stuff. There are doorways around here that I never knew existed to get from places. So you learn a little bit more each day. I have to tell you, the Red Sox have been great and the grounds crew has been great and the front office has been great. Anything we have needed, they have stepped up to the plate to make happen for us. Q. And second year with the truck, can you describe where you are at now at this point out from the game to where you were at Wrigley and whether you're better prepared for whatever Mother Nature throws at you? DAN CRAIG: As a matter of fact, we were just having a discussion before the conference with the engineer downstairs. And from what we learned last year going into the couple of days before, and even the things that we saw today with the sun on the ice, we are well prepared. It's more on the timing issues within the machines, because this truck, it is a monster, and it can run you over out there. So we have got to make sure that we take it very slowly, very gradually, and keep ahead of steam on this thing and just keep the pressure on it. Q. Don, in Buffalo when the game was going on and everything was happening, did you have an inclination of how big the Winter Classic could become so quickly? DON RENZULLI: I knew it could be big. I didn't at that point really know how big it could get, and I think what you see here in Boston is there's a big buzz around the game. Buffalo, there was a buzz, but it was more about game day. Out at the stadium where that was located, you didn't see many people. Here, you are seeing people walk around. The store is busy across the street. I have had people look online and see what ticket prices are, and they are awfully high, which means there's a buzz. We are getting our hotel decorated and people are getting sighted over there. So back then, no. I think we still have a long way to go and we will continue to build this game each and every year. Q. Dan, what do you do to compensate for rain and like, say, warmer temperatures than you are expecting? Can you simply jack up the cold and keep the ice surface colder? DAN CLAIG: Well, two days ago when we had the heavy rain, the truck ran at 60 percent and we froze everything up. We still haven't found the borderline for this thing to say that it's enough. So it's just a matter of the engineer and myself tweaking things and see what we come up with. |
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