Sloppy winter classic 3 The nhl sent pittsburgh and washington out onto heinz field to stir up hallmark memories of childhood days on the backyard rink.They hadn't planned on doing it on a rink not a whole lot better than the one you make with a garden hose, and in the middle of a rainstorm. The surface started out awful.For a while, as temperatures dropped and passions rose, it got better.Sort of like the game.The rain began lashing in the third, making the whole thing a hot mess. Caps coach bruce boudreau called it hockey without"The fancy tic tac toe stuff. "If boudreau had been describing it behind dressing room doors rather than at a post game podium, he might've given it its proper boudreauism: "F g ugly. " Even so, the nhl can claim another success in their fourth winter classic, and their first in prime time.They marketed the game around nostalgia and its two stars.Hbo did them the great favour of playing up the dislike between these two teams in its ongoing and often riveting behind the scenes 24/7 documentary. It was the element of professional enmity that showed best inside this nfl arena, and it http://www.irmina.co.uk/ was that dislike that animated the 68, 000 on hand. The football feel to the thing only started with heinz field, home of the steelers.There was a throbbing tailgate going on pre game.Visitors had to start pressing hard against backs to get through the herd a full three blocks from the stadium.A third of that well lubricated crowd was wearing enemy red. The rain was not as heavy as feared on saturday morning and afternoon, but it did its harm. During warm ups, it looked like the two teams were only a thin top sheet away from playing in the winter water polo classic.Every shot puck looked like a beanbag rolled through a puddle, particularly in the rink's south end. As the teams emerged spines tingling, as they later told it it was 11 c.They turned off the fancy heating elements in the temporary benches. "It was more than just a game,"Boudreau said. "This is as close to the stanley cup as we've come. " But the ice surface was a bush league mess.Pucks were skipping away or stopping dead.During tv timeouts, crews rushed out to shave the slush off the surface.Late in the first period, alex ovechkin swooped in on a dropped pass, raised his stick over his shoulder, hit a rut and nearly rode his own face into the pittsburgh goal. Evgeni malkin wowed the crowd, first with a swooping goal after floating in on the wing, and then with a potentially disastrous celebration that involved jumping up and straddling the bench.Washington calmed the party down with a couple of scruffy efforts by mike knuble and eric fehr, the first of his two. Then, a genuine non weather, non hbo, non winter classic related talking point near the end of the second washington's towering centre man david steckel caught a turning crosby flush in the head with his shoulder.Crosby was down for several long minutes, and it looked like we might have the sort of third period that gives gary bettman marketing nightmares. Crosby would say afterward that he wasn't sure what happened.He gritted his teeth as he added,"He got my head, that's for sure. " But the rain picked up in the third and game slowed down.Washington dumped and dumped and fehr potted the insurance on a cheap ralph Lauren polos breakaway. Maybe it's not the way the nhl would've planned it, but it's the way it should end the game won by a stringy kid from manitoba who's cheap polo ralph lauren t shirts been a healthy scratch in recent weeks.That's the best of hockey, right there.That's the best of any sport.

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