Wrigley Field’s rink is starting to take shape

As a cool fog hovered over Wrigley Field on Friday afternoon, construction workers moved boxes across a large ivy graphic where the third base line would normally be.

Four days before Tuesday afternoon’s puck drop for the NHL Winter Classic, the conversion from baseball stadium to hockey arena for the outdoor game between the Chicago Blackhawks and the St. Louis Blues is taking shape.

“These are exciting days for us – this is where the field truly comes to life,” said NHL Chief Content Officer Steve Mayer. “There’s a lot of work and a lot of great people who put this together. …

“If you’ve been following the progress from last week to today, step by step: first we set up the rink and start building the ice, and then we put an armor plate over the whole field. And now it’s the next level, which is the graphics that bring it all to life. And that’s the exciting part. …

“Then it starts to feel really real. That’s when you realize that you’re still a week away from the game.”

Mayer stood in front of cameras with the Chicago Cubs’ remodeled home as the backdrop.

“You’re probably about 50% done,” he said.

Additional graphics and structures as well as artificial snow need to be installed.

Mayer also revealed that the Winter Classic will carry over a few Cubs traditions: the rooftops and the seventh-inning stretch song “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

“We really tried to take advantage of the Cubs’ play in so many different ways,” Mayer said. “And the roofs will be pretty cool. “That was something we didn’t have in 2009,” when Wrigley hosted the Classic for the first time on New Year’s Day and the Detroit Red Wings beat the Hawks 6-4.

“One of the things we kept thinking about was, ‘Okay, we were here in 2009, how can we make it feel different and be different?'” he said. “And it depends on everything, from the way we convey the feeling but also the music. We really had a Chicago vibe with Chance the Rapper and Smashing Pumpkins.

“You’ll see that there will be traditions at Cubs games that we’ll just carry over to what we’re going to do in our game, really capitalizing on this city that has such a great sports tradition.” …So why not address it?”

As for “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” Mayer said the NHL will have its own version that will take place after the second intermission during the first timeout.

Mayer said to capture the atmosphere of Cubs games, he and other members of the league’s event staff visited Wrigley twice to take it all in.

“There will be Cubs in attendance,” he said. “We will play as much of the tradition as possible. This is one of the great milestones in professional sports and we are honored to be here, we are honored to be able to play a second game at Wrigley Field and our fans love it.”

Originally published: December 27, 2024 at 4:54 pm CST