Nathan MacKinnon magic, 90s fashion, highlights from Lake Tahoe bonanza

NHL deserves a lot of credit

As we delved into in the previous slide, the NHL took a lot of heat over the weekend for the chaos that unfolded on Saturday with the game between the Vegas Golden Knights and the Colorado Avalanche being delayed due to ice issues. The bright sun caused ruts to form in the ice and, with players and officials falling over, the decision was made to postpone the game until the evening.

That resulted in a more than eight hour wait between the first and second periods and, while the game was completed and it looked great under the lights at night, there are those who still continue to bash the NHL like it is a sport.

Now, going after the NHL can be easy sometimes given some of the mistakes they have committed, but they don’t deserve negative backlash for this weekend. I mean, we all know weather forecasts can change and you can argue that maybe the games should have been played at night anyway, but the whole point of this weekend was to put on a scenic and breathtaking two days of hockey.

The league certainly achieved that mission even with the problems they encountered on Saturday, and they managed to repair the ice, get the necessary lighting and finish the game between the Avs and the Golden Knights and it was a pretty good spectacle.

They also moved the Boston Bruins and the Philadelphia Flyers game a few times on Sunday and it turned out to be perfect, with the two teams battling it out against a beautiful backdrop with the sunlight glaring off the lake in the first period, the sky a beautiful shade of yellow, orange and blue in the second and the third being played under the lights in a romantic throwback to when you would play hockey with your friends out on a frozen lake at night.

So, while the weekend didn’t go smoothly and there were problems along the way, the two games were still pretty impressive spectacles and the overall quality of the matchups were very entertaining, especially Sunday’s, and I would say these were the most breathtaking outdoor events put on by the NHL, who at least showed some initiative to try something different this year and they deserve credit for that.