Detroit Red Wings in doubt about much anticipated Winter Classic -NHL Update
Sadly, after the opening two weeks of the 2012-2013 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season were officially cancelled by the league, serious doubts about whether the annual Winter Classic will take place or not have come around by the Detroit Red Wings,
who were set to be one of the participators in the historic event.
The NHL Winter Classic is something each hockey fan looks forward to when the regular season kicks off and when there will be no hockey year, they can expect to not have a Winter Classic at all, but the league has still set November as the deadline for making
that decision.
Talking to Michigan Athletic director, Dave Brandon, there is no surety from either side that the Winter Classic will be held at the historic Michigan Stadium.
“It’s their big showcase event, and they’ve already sold, as I understand it, between 80,000-90,000 tickets,” Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon said this morning on WJR-AM (760). “There’s huge interest. Obviously, we’re looking forward to hosting it.
Until this dispute gets settled, nobody knows whether and if the game’s going to get played.”
Having nearly sold-out the event already really puts the NHL in a bad situation since they will have to refund that huge amount and breaking the hearts of so many fans is never an easy decision, something experts term as a leveraging point for both sides
to use in future negotiations.
“I’ve got to believe the Winter Classic is a leveraging tool in the whole process, because it’s something fun the players want to play in, and two, management’s going to want to have a revenue source from an event like that,” Michigan State AD Mark Hollis
said.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are to be the their opponents in the matchup and since it consists of two historic teams going at it in such an eventful city for hockey, fans were looking forward to it more than they were to the regular season itself.
There is no telling at the moment what will happen to the Winter Classic, but seeing how things are developing at the moment, the annual event just might be delayed or cancelled altogether.
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