Thursday, March 28, 2024

Few players have skated under stars

October 5, 2001

Most of the top-ranked Spartans’ outdoor playing experience hasn’t extended beyond friendly shinny games on cold winter afternoons.

That will change at 7:05 p.m. Saturday when No. 1 MSU takes on No. 4 Michigan in “The Cold War” under the stars in Spartan Stadium.

Well, maybe not under the stars - forecasters are predicting clouds and maybe rain - but it will still be a unique acclimation to the elements for most of the players.

“I’ve only played on frozen lakes and ponds when I was growing up,” MSU senior right wing Adam Hall said. “If (the temperature) is in the 40s (on Saturday), that’s definitely going to be different than playing in an indoor rink where it’s 60-70 degrees. We’re definitely going to have to keep moving and stay warm and stay loose.”

But some members of the Spartan and Wolverine communities have skated in outdoor games - with varying results and memories.

Former MSU forward Mike Donnelly played outside in a 1991 NHL exhibition game while he was a member of the Los Angeles Kings. The Kings and the New York Rangers dueled in a fight-filled fest on a portable rink outside of Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.

Donnelly said he and his teammates were apprehensive about the contest and weren’t very well-informed beforehand.

“At first we were really nervous,” said Donnelly, who played for the Spartans from 1983 to 86 and was an All-American in 1986. “We just saw it on the schedule and, to be honest, a lot of us were hoping we wouldn’t be in the lineup for that game. We just didn’t know what to expect.”

But the game ended up being “a great experience,” he said.

“It turned out to be the opposite of what we thought it would be,” Donnelly said. “It really got our blood pumping. A lot of fans came down from L.A. for the game and it was a very successful event.”

Donnelly said the ice surface was fine, but there were some noticeable shadows from the brighter-than-usual lighting installed for the game.

And Donnelly and the rest of the players also had to deal with a few other inconveniences unique to an outdoor contest, namely brutal desert heat and a swarm of grasshoppers - some of which landed on the ice.

Aware of his former player’s experience, MSU head coach Ron Mason sought Donnelly’s advice while planning “The Cold War,” and when Donnelly gave his coach an enthusiastic endorsement, it eased some of Mason’s doubts.

Mason has been around hockey for most of his life, but hasn’t had much experience outdoors either. His fondest memory came while coaching Lake Superior State early in his career.

“We were playing Saint Cloud (State) University, who had an outdoor rink - I’m pretty sure it was Saint Cloud,” Mason said. “That day, the sun was real bright and this was natural ice, not artificial ice.

“Part of the rink was real soft so you couldn’t skate on it. When the puck went into that area, whoever had it went in and got it and we had an out-of-bounds play like basketball.

“I’ll never forget that as long as I live. I mean, it was unbelievable.”

Michigan head coach Red Berenson said he played an entire European tour outdoors in 1959. Playing on a Canadian national team, Berenson said the team competed in cities such as Stockholm, Helsinki, Oslo and Munich, usually in bitter cold weather.

“It was January, February and part of March and, in some venues, it was really cold,” Berenson said. “We played one in Sweden, it was so cold - and we had grown up playing outdoor hockey. The players that came off the ice skated right to the shack at the end of a walkway (to keep warm).

The other players would come tearing out of the shack on the whistle and they wouldn’t even have seen the game. There was nobody on the bench.”

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