Giving 'em chills

But now that it's here, the first outdoor game in NHL history, what else is there to say except it's about time? Honestly, what a great idea. It could be better only if they ditched the regulation nets and plunked down your brother Joey's frozen rubber boots for goal posts and made everyone, netminders included, throw away the pads and strap Life magazines to their shins.

Game on, along with your thermal underwear, b-b-b-baby.

Eighty years into the puck business, the NHL has taken its game out of the closet and dropped it out here at Commonwealth Stadium this afternoon for a crowd of 55,000-plus -- the largest in league history -- to enjoy. The latter may be a chore, because temperatures here yesterday were around minus-15 Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit), and the ossifying/vaporizing cold may force the show to be scrubbed and played indoors at noon tomorrow at Rexall Place, the Oilers' newly named arena.

"It could be minus-10, with a wind that makes it feel like minus-30," mused Edmonton general manager Kevin Lowe, who will suit up for his old Oilers squad in a pregame MegaStars exhibition against a bunch of fellow graying Montreal Canadiens, including Guy Lafleur and Steve Shutt. "Or it could be minus-17, with no wind, and that's tolerable. We should be all right, but we'll have to see as the day goes on."

Minus-19 is the cutoff point some local grammar schools use when determining whether to send the kids out for recess. When it plunges to minus-20, everyone pushes the desks to the walls, no doubt, and plays floor hockey till math class begins.

"There is only one sport in our country, and it's ice hockey," said Wayne Gretzky, who has selected today's MegaStar tilt (3 p.m. local start) as the one and only old-timers' game he'll play. "In this country, you go to church and you play hockey."

Gretzky, who began his celebrated career here as The Kid, and quickly became The Great One as the game's all-time leading scorer, came duckwalking out of the dressing room on skates here around 11 a.m. He had a knit cap corked down over his ears, a bulky towel wrapped around his neck and tucked into his practice sweater's collar. A crowd of some 3,000 in the stands erupted in wild cheering, Gretzky wearing his No. 99 Oiler colors for the first time since being traded to Los Angeles in the summer of '88 at the zenith of his popularity.

"We did all the same drills we used to do, and no one missed a beat out there," said Gretzky, a smile plastered, if not frozen, on his face for the full 40-minute workout. "Maybe we weren't as fast, but . . ."

Glen Sather, who built the Oiler dynasty and coached four of the five Stanley Cup squads, directed the workout with longtime aides John Muckler and Ted Green.

"It was kind of a romantic moment for me," said Sather, now president/general manager/head coach of the semi-moribund New York Rangers. "To watch guys like Wayne, and Ken Linseman, and to see the sparkle in their eyes, and the flash of their teeth when they smiled at each other -- that was something very special."

For many, the old-timers' game will be the highlight of the Heritage Classic, put together to celebrate 25 years of the Oilers being in the NHL. It's the one-hour undercard as the sun disappears, followed by a 5 p.m. puck drop between today's Oilers and Canadiens.

Former University of New Hampshire netminder Ty Conklin will make his seventh straight start in the Oiler cage. During both games, propane heaters will push a steady stream of warm air into both benches. That won't help the goalies, who'll have to endure the elements for the full 60 minutes of play, a pair of ice-age woolly mammoths tending their nets.

Although he grew up in Alaska, Conklin figures he doesn't have the requisite ice water running through his veins.

"We played outside a lot as kids," said Conklin, a favorite son of Anchorage, "but never when it was below zero Fahrenheit. "Heck, how 'bout a [heat] blower for the net?"

Boston's own Chris Nilan was so chilled after the old Habs' early-morning skate, that he said he felt like he was "on another planet." Asked if he might engage old Oiler tough guy Marty McSorley in a fight, just for fun, he issued a somber, "I never fought for fun."

Alert for Bruins fans: The chance exists that the Habs will have both Lafleur and Yvon Lambert out there at the same time. Does that sound like, uh, too many (old) men on the ice?

Unofficial reports have circulated the last couple of weeks that there were more than a million ticket requests for today's festivities, some from as far away as China and Japan. Reports, too, have had scalpers looking for $2,500 for a pair of tickets, which were sold over the counter for prices ranging from $21 to $250 (all Canadian dollars). The game(s) won't be shown in the United States until next Saturday when ESPN finally has some air space on its Classic channel.

The crowd stands to be approximately twice that of the NHL record 28,183 who saw the Flyers take on the Lightning April 23, 1996, at the Thunderdome in St. Petersburg, Fla. It will not exceed the all-time hockey record of 72,027 who streamed into the East Lansing, Mich., football stadium Oct. 6, 2001, to see Michigan and Michigan State face off.

The second game, which will count in the NHL standings, will be played under standard league rules. The only accommodation to the elements could come in the third period; if there is a steady wind, the refs will mandate that the goalies change nets halfway through, to even out any possible advantage. In the early game, played in two 15-minute (stop-time) periods, a shootout will be implemented if there is a tie.

In the 1998 Olympics at Nagano, Team Canada lost a shootout to the Czech Republic. Incredibly, the Canadians opted not to have Gretzky as one of its five shooters.

What if there's a shootout today?

"I'm picking myself, Slats," a smiling Gretzky told Sather.

Unlike Olympus, there will be no medals awarded today. Provided both games are played, though, everyone no doubt will receive a badge of honor, two crystals in the shape of ice cubes, their memento for surviving Big Chill Hill.