Put the Winter Classic in the Yosemite Valley, so says me

Not that anyone asked me -- they never do -- but I'm weary of reading about how the Winter Classic is going to be in the Pittsburgh Steeler's stadium this coming New Year's Day and how it's going to be in various other baseball and football stadiums in the future.

Yawn.

As I wrote last year, if the NHL had some cajones, they'd put the game in a mountain or ski town in some kind of temporary stadium built of bleachers. I still think a Kings-Ducks game in Mammoth Lakes would be a monster hit here in California, but I also think the world is ripe with other opportunities.

So please allow me to throw one longshot out there: a Winter Classic in Yosemite Valley.

Yes, that Yosemite Valley. The one that's a national park.

If Ken Burns or John Muir's ghost is reading this and just died (or re-died) of a heart attack, I suggest chilling out. It's only a blog post.

Yes, the above photo makes the Yosemite Valley look pristine, but it's not. In fact, it's often a big traffic filled mess.

The far end of the Valley, for example, boasts a couple of parking lots worthy of a Walmart, an upper crust hotel that charges more than $400 per night, a second hotel for the Little People like you and me, as well as a tourist village, several campgrounds to serve the monster RV crowd and a couple of large tent-cabin villages that bring to mind the phrase "sub-Saharan refugee camp."

So -- if you are an environmentalist (and I am) don't go screaming at me for proposing a hockey game in a sacred place, given that Yosemite also has a permanent ski resort in the high country and a regular ice rink in the Yosemite Valley during the winter. 

In fact, a game in Yosemite could be greenwashed with a few simple steps, such as arranging bus transportation on the day of the game for the majority of fans. And it's not like a game requires a monster temporary stadium -- the smaller, the better. A lottery can be held for a lucky few fans and the rest of us get to ogle something spectacular via television.

And why would the park consider doing this? A nice big injection of cash into the park's coffers. The maintenance backlog at our national parks has been well-chronicled in the press for years. 

Yes, the chance of this happening hovers around zero. But my put-a-game-in-a-ski-town idea is a good one and it's not like it has to be an NHL game. College or minor league hockey would do just nicely as a way to give the public a taste of hockey in a grand setting. A lottery can also be held to allow some lucky youth teams and beer league teams a chance to play in Yosemite/mountain town -- giving the sport a great publicity boost that could increase participation.

Putting aside Yosemite, there are some other outstanding candidates for an outdoor game. Aspen, Vail, Breckenridge, Steamboat, Whitefish (Mont.), Lake Louise and Tahoe all come to mind. South Lake Tahoe, in particular, is basically a shithole of a town in a lovely setting -- and a game of ourdoor hockey is hardly going to make it any uglier.

--Steve Hymon

Other Winter Classic ideas

Following up on my previous post about where to put future Winter Classic games, Puck Daddy has an article with 30 suggestions -- including a game on the National Mall, in Yellowstone National Park -- I love that idea -- and putting the game somewhere in Alaska.

Winter Classic should come to the Sierra or the Rockies

With the most recent Winter Classic, held in Fenway Park in Boston, being widely judged a success, a lot of attention is now turning where to hold future outdoor NHL games. A fun article on the Fox website proposes, among other ideas, a game between the Ducks and Kings at the L.A. Coliseum.

And I came across a Tweet proposing a game on the frozen ice of the national mall in Washington D.C. Can't you just imagine an errant slapshot clanging off the head of the Abe Lincoln statue?

Well, here's my brilliant idea: Instead of putting the game in another massive stadium in the Eastern U.S., move it to a truly scenic setting. And there are few more spectacular places than the Sierra Nevada or the Rocky Mountains.

The NHL could, for example, build a temporary rink with bleachers in the giant parking lot at Squaw Valley, scene of the 1960 Winter games -- where, by the way, the U.S. team beat the Soviet Union in the first version of the Miracle on Ice. Blyth Arena, where that game was held, was torn down in the early 1980s after the roof collapsed due to heavy snowfall (above is the view of the 1960 Olympic facilities, as seen from Squaw's slopes).

A game at Squaw could pit the perpertual contender San Jose Sharks versus pretty much anyone and be a treat to watch.

Can the NHL be saved by the NHL?

That's the theme of a good post at the NYT's Slap Shot blog. In Jeff Klein's view, the past decade was mostly a disaster until the first Winter Classic was staged on Jan. 1, 2008, in front of 71,000 people in the Buffalo Bills' stadium.

Give the piece a read. I'm curious what others think. As a relatively new pro hockey fan, I find the game terribly exciting but remain puzzled by several aspects -- the bland marketing, the absence from television, the often poor writing about it in the media, teams in odd locales, a season that goes on forever, etc.

Am I alone in these views? Or just seeing what other hockey fans see?

--Steve Hymon

photo: New York Times

Need sustenance after hard game of hockey? Try my world-famous chili recipe!

After a hard couple of hours of skating poorly, making inept passes to the wrong team, getting beat by school girls, toppling over for no apparent reason and pulling the trigger on pathetically weak shots that dribble at the speed of a tortoise past their target (if they make it that far), I sure like to sit down to a hot meal.

Specifically, my own world famous Cincinnati chili. No, I didn't invent Cincy chili. I was only born there. But in my 23 years of living in the Queen City, I probably ate hundreds of gallons of the stuff and concocted my own recipe to capture the magic that is Cincinnati chili.

So, you are probably asking, what exactly is the big deal about Cincinnati chili?

Glad you asked!

Unlike that slop that snobbish Texans serve and call chili, Cincy chili utilizes beans. As all chili should. Cincy chili also is down-home enough to employ simple, tasty ground beef and is also far sweeter than the bland bowl of chewy meat some deranged Texan may serve you. The sweetness comes from a variety of secret spices, all of which are listed below.

In Cincinnati, there are a variety of chili parlors around town that serve chili over pasta. The chili is then topped with grated cheddar cheese and raw chopped onion. It is good any time of the day -- even breakfast, if you're drunk enough -- but is especially good when it's late at night, you're perhaps not 100% sober and it's become very clear that there's no way on God's green Earth you're getting laid that evening. It is still, after all, chili. And I'd hate to hear about any embarrasing backfires that can be attributed to a gorgeous bowl of my chili.

If you're ever passing through Cincy, btw, the best chili parlor is Skyline Chili. Gold Star can be found in the terminals at the Cincy airport, and it's not bad, but it ain't Skyline. 

How good is my chili?

Well, I made some once in the mid-1990s for a party and actually caught a dude eating it straight out of the pot in the kitchen. While that's completely disgusting, I was secretly complimented that the fat-ass slob found my chili so tasty that he couldn't wait to consume it in true Jabba the Hutt (see below) fashion. 

But enough of me complimenting my culinary skills. Let's have at it: 

Ingredients
1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
1 pound ground beef
1 can kidney beans
1 can black beans (optional)
at least 3 tbspn of chili powder (I prefer McCormicks or Gebhardts)
at least 2 bbspn of ground cumin
1 teaspn cinnamon
1 teaspn allspice
1 teaspn unsweetened chocolate
1 teaspn sugar
1 yellow or banana pepper, finely chopped
Tabasco sauce
Worcestershire sauce
1 big yellow onion, chopped
1 bag finely grated cheddar cheese

1. Empty the can of crushed tomatoes into a big chili pot and put on simmer.
2. Open a beer and begin drinking.
3. Add the chili powder, cumin, cinnamon, allspice, chocolate and pepper. Mindlessly stir for a couple of minutes.
4. Add a few splashes of Tabasco sauce and Worcestershire sauce. Mindlessly stir some more.
5. Add the sugar. More mindless stirring.
6. If you don't already have some Bruce pounding on the stereo, now would be a good time to turn it up. See suggested mix below.
7. Dice the big yellow onion. Cry like the baby you are.
8. Toss a splash of olive oil in a skillet and cook that onion for about five minutes, until translucent.
9. Add the ground beef (or turkey or whatever meat-like product floats your boat). Cook until brown, drain the beef and the onion and add to the chili pot.
10. Stir for a few minutes. This is the most important stir, so give it some elbow grease.
11. Cover the chili pot, leaving it to simmer for 45 minutes. No peeking!
12. At the end of 45 minutes -- by now you should be on beer #2 -- uncover the chili pot. Breathe it in. Stir!
13. Let it simmer uncovered for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally. Keep drinking.
14. remove chili pot from heat.
15. cook some spaghetti or rice. Put some spaghetti or rice in individual bowls and then pour some chili over the top and then a big handful of cheddar cheese on top of that. Dig in with your fork and mix it all up.
16. Get out the television trays and find something fairly mindless to watch. Works particularly well with football and hockey. Works extremely well, too, with "30 Rock," "Dumb and Dumber," "Office Space," "Old School" and, most of all, "Blades of Glory." I also plan to be eating my chili while watching the NHL's Winter Classic from Fenway Park on New Year's Day.
IT'S A MATHEMATICAL FACT: If you need twice the amount of chili described above, simply double the ingredients! Cool!

More chili variations and other advice after the jump. Don't stop reading now!