It was an early start on New Years Day morning, I picked up Stam at 5:00 am and we headed off to Ann Arbor, Michigan for the Winter Classic at The Big House.
The drive took us 5.5 hours, Google says it takes 4.5 hours, so we made pretty good time given the weather conditions. We crossed the border at Sarnia and the weather was good up until Livonia when the snow started coming down. I prepaid for a parking spot in one of the downtown parking garages, it cost $10.25. The lot was about 1 mile from the stadium.
Approaching the Big House, home of the University of Michigan Wolverines.
They had a Spectator Plaza beside the stadium, with food, beer, games, and live entertainment.
Me out front of the stadium, the snow kept falling.
Taking our seats before the game, we were in section 30, row 91 in the northwest corner of the stadium.
The guys on skates shovelling the snow, they had a busy night ahead.
You can see the division between blue on the left and red on the right.
The pre-game warm up skate.
The stadium at near capacity, the announced attendance was 105,491, a new record for watching a hockey game.
The American national anthem sung by the Zac Brown Band. The Canadian anthem was sung by the Tenors (Who?)
Stam and I in the Big House. For another photo of us in the Big House see this photo (we’re in the blue circle).
Where’s “no-shirt” Waldo in the crowd? One of the two guys sitting near us that took their shirts off in the cold. The game time temperature was -10 deg C.
The announcement that the Maple Leafs second goal was good.
Tyler Bozak’s winning shootout goal.
The final score Leafs 3, Detroit 2!
Despite the 100,000 plus people it didn’t take long to get out of the stadium.
The throngs of happy and disappointed fans filling Main St for the walk back to their vehicles.
We had dinner in Ann Arbor before heading to our hotel in Livonia, but the traffic was still bad when we finished. It was the snowy conditions and icy roads that made it worse, we passed numerous cars that had gone into ditches. The usual 30 minute drive turned into 2 hours.
We left the hotel the next morning at 8:00 am and headed for home, after dropping Stam off at home, I was home by 2:00pm. When we arrived at the border, the lady asked how long we had been away. I told her we were at the hockey game and she said “you were one of the smart ones”, although she did say they had extra staff for the night because they were expecting a big rush after the game, but it never came. When we checked in there were three families ahead of us who had checked out that morning, planning to drive back to Burlington after the game, but were trying to check back in because of the weather.
Like the Leafs thank you e-mail said “you made the journey, you braved the elements, you were a part of the largest attended game in NHL history”. Stam and I had a great time and may try and plan for a road trip to Philadelphia to see his NFL Eagles play next year.