The St. Louis Blues will be playing in their second Winter Classic in franchise history. However, the league decision was not universally applauded.
When the St. Louis Blues earned the right to host a Winter Classic, there was not a ton of blow back from around the league. It was nice to have a new team as the host and Chicago being the opponent made sense since the rivalry was at its strongest in decades.
Swing things around to 2020 and its a little different. The NHL announced the Minnesota Wild would host the 2021 Winter Classic back in January, but waited until late February to announce the Blues as the opponent.
Whether that was a league decision to withhold the news or whether Minnesota literally had not decided yet is up in the air. What we do know is, for whatever reason, the announcement it was going to be the Blues was met with a decent amount of resistance online.
St. Louis is the least fascinating team to have the #mnwild play in the Winter Classic, so naturally, the NHL picks them.
— Giles Ferrell (@gilesferrell) February 24, 2020
This particular tweet drew the most response, in addition to others. However, being biased, I fail to understand.
The Blues are the defending Stanley Cup champions as of the announcement and are still at decent odds to win another. St. Louis typically has some of the best local television ratings of any NHL team.
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Watch any Blues road game this season and you will see how many Blues fans there are around the country. I have no doubt that some of those road fans made a trip of it, but I do not think that the majority are from St. Louis and just travelling around. These are Blues fans living in Canada, California, New York area, etc.
Why would the NHL not want that? Also, despite an odd Chicago vs Washington and Chicago vs. Boston matchup, they try to go with rivals.
Minnesota fans would know better than me who their chief rival is, but I’m not sure who would be a better choice than the Blues. You could pick Chicago, but c’mon Wild fans. Do you really want Chicago in another game?
Also, the NHL seems to be finally realizing that Chicago is in the tank. Even at their worst, there is little doubt that there are enough Blackhawks fans to pull a decent television rating, but Chicago has been near the bottom of the Central Division and also the Western Conference for a couple seasons now. With Minnesota being up and down and partially rebuilding right now, having a rebuilding team against a team still clutching to their 2010’s championship core is not good television.
The Blues are right in the middle of their championship potential. Who else is there?
Winnipeg might have been an interesting matchup, but no offense to Jets fans, Canadian teams don’t draw well in the United States. Also, there are the logistical aspects of the television part since TSN (I’m assuming they’re the ones that broadcast this game) would want to have more of a role in it than just simulcasting NBC’s feed if a Canadian team were involved.
Who else would you pick? Some random Eastern Conference team with absolutely no ties to the Minnesota franchise? I guess you could have the novelty of including a Florida team such as Tampa for the first time, but there is little intrigue in that other than it simply being the Winter Classic.
However, St. Louisans will find it hard to believe this is anything more than outsiders doubting our town again. Somewhat similar to teams like San Antonio in the NBA or Boise State in college football, there is this odd response to smaller city/area teams when they try to stay good.
The first go around, you get people rallying behind you. Oh, it’s such a good story they haven’t won in 50-plus years, let them have one. Suddenly they stay good and the league starts showing some respect and fans quickly turn and say they’ve had their moment, now go away.
This will only be the Blues second outdoor game in history. Yet, while some were tongue-in-cheek, there were literal online responses that would make you think St. Louis had been in as many or more than the Chicago Blackhawks.
None of these responses came from Blues fans. The general consensus among St. Louis was this was fantastic and there was much excitement, at least from anyone not named Alex Pietrangelo who had no clue.
When asked about the Winter Classic ...
— Jeremy Rutherford (@jprutherford) February 24, 2020
Pietrangelo: “We're going back? I had no idea."
Reporter: "Well, you know now."
Pietrangelo: "Where is it?"
Reporter: "Target Field."
Pietrangelo: "That's pretty cool.”
But, perhaps it is just the time we live in. People always need to b*tch about something.
Hopefully Wild fans will get on board. This is a great event, especially when you’re hosting.
Don’t give the Blues credit for what they’ve done if you want, but the truth is unless you live in New York, Los Angeles or Boston, people will watch this game. Those other high brow cities can roll their eyes at the Midwest if they want.
Minnesota vs. St. Louis is just the sort of game the league should want and the Wild made the right choice in selecting their opponent.