Steve Milton: Everything you need to know the NHL Heritage Classic at Tim Hortons Field

Classic weather

As of Friday, the weather forecast called for a temperature of zero C at game time for Sunday afternoon's Tim Hortons NHL Heritage Classic, and a wind chill of minus-7, with mostly cloudy skies and some light snow. The temperature may rise to plus-1 by the end of the game. Game day looks great for us, cool in the morning and maybe some flurries around game time which will just add to the atmosphere," says Mike Craig, the NHL's senior manager of facility operations who predicts the ice surface will be in great shape.

Sportsnet carrying game

The Heritage Classic broadcast starts at 4 p.m. on Sportsnet TVA Sports and TNT. Wayne Gretzky, who grew up down the road in Brantford, will be on the press level of Tim Hortons Field as an analyst for TNT while former Hamilton resident Ron MacLean and the popular Hockey Night in Canada broadcast team will lead the Sportsnet broadcast.

Wind? Here?

If the wind is strong enough to favour playing at one end, the NHL will decide in consultation with the teams to stop the third period - and overtime if it gets that far - at exactly the halfway point and the teams will switch ends. That happened most famously in 2014, when the mid-third-period buzzer cost the Red Wings' Henrik Zetterberg a likely breakaway in the NHL Winter Classic at the Big House in Michigan, which the Leafs went on to win in a shootout.

Sunday's forecast wind at game time is 28 km/h and Leafs GM Kyle Dubas predicted last week, the wind will have an impact on this game." NHL officials have realized in setting up the rink that Tim Hortons Field can act like a wind tunnel. We've been told, especially by the Ticats, that the bleachers on the field should block some of the wind," says NHL Chief Content Officer Steve Mayer, who added that the 3,300-seat bleachers in the south end zone are, the best seats ever for an outdoor game. We've never had them that close (to the ice)."

Argylls, and fly over

Sunday's opening ceremony will begin with a welcome to the land led by Chief Stacey Laforme of the Mississaugas of the Credit and Chief Mark Hill of Six Nations of the Grand River.

The Canadian and U.S. anthems will be performed by country music star and Canada's Got Talent host, Lindsay Ell. Five members of Hamilton's Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders will present the U.S. and Canadian flags and the ceremony concludes with a flypast of four CT-155 Hawk Jets from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

Golden women honoured

During the second intermission, Hamilton's Sarah Nurse, Burlington's Renata Fast and Emma Maltais and the rest of the dominant Canadian Women's National Team will be honoured on the field for their gold medals at both the 2022 Winter Olympics and the 2021 world hockey championships. The team is also scheduled to be part of the pre-game Fan Festival in the stadium's south plaza.

Fan Fest freebies

There has been a 55 per cent increase in Heritage Classic Pregame Fan Festival partners with the NHL since the 2019 event in Regina. The PROLINE+ NHL Fan festival, open to game-ticket-holders only, will be on the south patio of Tim Hortons Field, which has been extended right across Cannon Street (which is closed off) to the edge of the Bernie Custis Secondary School grounds. It contains four mini-rinks where fans can test the speed and accuracy of their hockey shots, and numerous sponsors' booths.

The festival runs from noon Sunday until the end of the second intermission and features giveaways from about a dozen sponsors include Tim Hortons coffee and hot chocolate and personalized Upper Deck cards; Canadian Tire branded sunglasses and eye-black stickers; Clorox hand sanitizer; Esso-sponsored personal photos superimposed on the ice surface image; and draws to win merchandise, including a new Honda Civic.

Cara knows outdoor gigs

Singer-songwriter Alessia Cara, who grew up in Brampton, will perform during the first intermission. The 25-year-old has won a Grammy and five Junos. And she's headlined a major outdoor Canadian sports event before, with her highly-praised halftime performance at the 2018 Grey Cup in Edmonton. Alessia's been someone we've been after for an outdoor game for years but the schedules never worked out," Steve Mayer, NHL Chief Content Officer said. Her dad is a huge Leafs fan, so she's always wanted to work a game. People will get quite a show on Sunday. It's a big hockey game with points at stake but we focus on the fan experience and we're really focused on the music. There is a lot of pomp and circumstance."

TikTok star

TikTok pop-punk artist Willow, whose track Meet Me At Our Spot," has generated 1 million videos on the video-focussed social networking service, will perform before the game. Her show will live stream on @NHL on TikTok starting at 2:45 p.m. and game-ticket holders will be allowed onto the football field to watch her perform on the tailgate stage. NHL executive Steve Mayer says it's the first time fans have been allowed on field level for an outdoor game.

Leaf GM Ticats ticket holder

Toronto GM Kyle Dubas and his wife, Shannon, who's from Hamilton, lived in the city for a number of years and are still Tiger-Cats season's ticket holders (on the club level). I spent a lot of time at this stadium, and at Ivor Wynne," he recalls. We used to tailgate at Scott Park when the games were at Ivor Wynne. It's a very passionate sports town, which I've experienced first-hand, so it's meaningful for me personally to have this game here."

Outdoor Arenas

The Maple Leafs will wear dark blue jerseys with a large letter T, to commemorate the Toronto Arenas, who were a founding NHL team in 1917, renamed themselves the Toronto St. Patricks in 1919 and became the Maple Leafs in 1927.

First international Heritage Classic

This is the sixth Heritage Classic and first to involve the Maple Leafs, and first to have a non-Canadian team. The series is one of three outdoor stadium streams run by the NHL, along with the Winter Classic and the Stadium Series, and is played at irregular intervals. Other Heritage Classics were: 2003 in Edmonton with the Oilers beating Montreal; 2011 in Calgary where it was Flames 4-0 shutting out the Canadiens 0; 2014 in Vancouver with Ottawa doubling the Canucks 4-2: 2016 in Winnipeg, the Jets beating the Oilers 3-0, and 2019 in Regina, as Winnipeg doubled the Flames 2-1.

The inaugural Heritage Classic, which drew 56,167 fans to Commonwealth Stadium in November 2003, was also the first outdoor regular-season game in NHL history and the league has run another 34 since then, including Sunday's game. The inaugural 2003 Heritage Classic featured the two NHL teams which, the season before, had split the affiliation with the AHL Hamilton Bulldogs, who went to the seventh game of the Calder Cup final. There were 15 former Bulldogs in the first Heritage Classic and four of them scored points, two for each team.

Staios starred in inaugural game

Hamilton's Steve Staios, the current Bulldogs' president, scored a goal and two assists for Edmonton in the first Heritage Classic in the 4-3 loss to Montreal. He also played for Calgary in the second Heritage Classic, and was captain of one of the two star-studded teams in the charity outdoor game at Ivor Wynne Stadium in 2005. The first Heritage Classic was such a great event, it was so unique and there was such a buildup to it, with so much excitement, that there was a little bit of a letdown after it. As a team we struggled a bit to find our footing on the road trip after it."

Will Jim Balsillie be here, too?

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman will be in the stadium Sunday. He, of course, led the charge several years ago to keep the Predators in Nashville and the Coyotes in Arizona, where each still remains. Jim Balsillie had worked out deals with then-owners to buy the struggling franchises - the Preds in 2007 and the Coyotes in 2009 - and eventually move them to Hamilton. He was thwarted both times.

There are two rinks

As well as the regulation-size rink with centre ice located right in the middle of the 55-yard line, there is a much smaller rink just a few metres to the east, fed by the same refrigeration system, where kids from the Tim Hortons Timbits program will play hockey throughout the NHL game.

Sabres struggle, but not against Leafs

This will be the 11th straight year the Sabres don't make the playoffs, while the Leafs are bona fide Stanley Cup contenders but Buffalo has an overall 107-84-18-11 record against their nearest rivals, including a 5-1 victory March 2 in Toronto. And in their history, Buffalo owns a whopping 66-33-6-6 home record over the Leafs and the Heritage Classic is technically a Sabres home" game.

Sunday's opponents have met only once in a playoff series: when Buffalo won the 1999 East final in five games, before losing the Stanley Cup final to Dallas in six.

I was with Toronto for that series," says current Sabres GM, Kevyn Adams, who played many, many times against the Hamilton Huskies," as he was growing up in Buffalo. Just going back and forth on the QEW for that playoff series, you saw the rivalry. I remember being in the hotel in Buffalo and the fans standing outside chanting.

It's always exciting any time these two teams play each other, whether it's in Toronto, Buffalo or Hamilton. We need to do our part in Buffalo to get our team back up to where we want it to be."

Late date

Sunday will be the latest in a hockey season that the NHL has played any of its 35 outdoor games. Only three others have been played as late as March: the Stadium Series game on March 1, 2014; the Heritage Classic, March 2, 2014, and the Stadium Series March 3, 2018. Because of the size of Tim Hortons Field, the crowd of just under 25,000 will also be the smallest for any of the 32 games which were permitted to have fans. The previous low was 33,240 in Winnipeg for the 2016 Heritage Classic while the all-time high was 105,491 for the 2014 Winter Classic at the University of Michigan. Pandemic restrictions shut the doors to fans for two outdoor games at Lake Tahoe in February, 2021.

First regular-season game here in 26 years

Tim Hortons Field will be the third Hamilton venue to host any NHL regular-season games, after the tiny Barton Street Arena (63 games by the Hamilton Tigers; the last on March 7, 1925 before they moved to New York to become the Americans) and Copps Coliseum (eight neutral site" games from 1992-94, all but two involving the Leafs or Sabres, although not against each other).

Steve Milton is a Hamilton-based sports columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: smilton@thespec.com