NHL Winter Classic

Wonder what Fred Taylor would think of this surface

This New Year's afternoon, you could have been watching:

• One of three bowl game blowouts (Mizzou over Arkansas, USC over Illinois, Georgia over Hawaii)


• Perenially Big Ten overrated Wisconsin lose to perenially SEC overrated Tennessee


• Texas Tech QB dujour throw about 50 five yard completions and then listen to the announcers talk about how "good" he is (note to self: if ever considering graduate school, apply to Texas Tech and attempt to walk on football team as QB).


• Lloyd Carr get carried off the field as if he had actually won a game of importance.

OR, you could have watched one of the more exciting regular season NHL games in recent memory. My Pittsburgh Penguins traveled up to Buffalo to play an outdoor game against the Sabres, and like the Steelers usually do, left Ralph Wilson Stadium with the win, 2-1 in shootout.

As anyone who has spent time around Lake Erie in winter, or anyone who has ever watched a Buffalo Bills game in December or January could tell you, snow is likely. And that's just what they got, with wintry precipitation throughout the game. This made the game both fun and excruciating to watch, as the many mid-game delays to clean snow off the ice made the game stretch out over 3.5 hours, longer than any regular season game I can remember watching. Much like during a football game, in those weather conditions speed was neutralized and the game turned into a low-scoring slugfest.

Sidney Crosby created the first goal 20 seconds into the game, skating around a Sabre defenseman and crashing the net hard. While his shot was stopped, Colby Armstrong buried the rebound to put the Pens up early. The Sabres tied it early in a second period they dominated, and the rest of regulation was filled with physical hockey and outstanding goaltending by Ty Conklin and Ryan Miller. The Pens forced a shootout by killing off a 4 on 3 power play in overtime, with numerous tremendous saves by Conklin. In the shootout, Buffalo struck first, but a goal by Kris Letang and another couple great stops by Conklin put the game back in Crosby's hands with the chance to win it. Not unexpectedly, he put it right through the five hole, and I'm sure NHL and NBC executives couldn't have scripted a better ending.

While in the long run it's just another regular season game, the uniqueness, huge audience (both in attendance and on television), and level of play gave this game a playoff like feel. The fact that the Pens were able to pull it out, albeit in shootout form, hopefully will be a big stepping stone for this team as we enter the second half of the season.

Random notes: In a bizarre move, the Canadian anthem was sung before a game involving Pittsburgh and Buffalo, and our own National Anthem was NOT sung at all. Apparently you can replace the national anthem with God Bless America (sung by that Yankee guy) and its the same difference. Pittsburgh teams are now 2-0 this year in games that skip the national anthem beforehand...Listening to the hockey announcers try to discuss meteorology like they knew what they were talking about was comical..."A+++" for both teams' throwback uniforms, the Penguin's baby blues and the Sabres crossing swords.