NHL: Boston Bruins win Winter Classic in overtime

Sunday, January 3, 2010

The Boston Bruins won against the Philadelphia Flyers at Boston’s historic Fenway Park becoming the first home team to win the NHL Winter Classic in front of a crowd of 38,112 Friday.

Before the game began, a ceremonial face-off took place between Bruins’ legend Bobby Orr and Flyers’ legend Bobby Clarke who represented their respective teams as honorary captains.

The first period went by with both teams tied scoreless at 0-0. However, fists went flying, in the first ever Winter Classic fight, between the Bruins’ Shawn Thornton and the Flyers’ Daniel Carcillo, who was looking to fight. Thornton said of the fight, “It wasn’t about that. He was out there and asked a couple guys. I don’t think it’s anybody else’s job to do that. There’s nobody on the team that has the same role as me. So I went and obliged.”

Thornton added, “Yeah, first one ever, I guess. You’ve been reminding me about it for the last six months. It happened. Now it’s over and we can stop talking about it.”

Then at 4:42 in the second period, Danny Syvret, gave the Flyers their first point in what was Syvret’s first goal of his NHL career. The game went in the third period with the Flyers leading, 1-0.

However, the Bruins made a comeback in the third period on a power play, when former Flyer Mark Reechi tied the game 1-1 with 2:18 left in the period. The game went into “extra innings” at Fenway with both teams battling back forth until the very end with the Bruins’ Marco Sturm gained control of the puck from the Flyers’ Matt Carle hitting the puck to fellow teammate Patrice Bergeron.

Bergeron gained control of the puck and turned it to pass to Sturm who read Bergeron’s movement. Sturm tipped the puck into net, winning the game for the Bruins at 3:03 in overtime driving the crowd in Fenway wild as the team swarmed Sturm to congratulate him.

Bruins’ goalie Tim Thomas also achieved a dream of his as after the game concluded the United States men’s national ice hockey team announced it’s roster for the 2010 Winter Olympics which included the goalie. The team will play at 2010 Winter Olympics next month in Vancouver, British Columbia.

However, the rink in Fenway won’t come down just yet, Yesterday at 2PM EDT, the Bruins held the AT&T Legends Classic where former Bruins legends such as Cam Neely and Terry O’Reilly and current Bruins’ coach Claude Julien were joined by celebrities such as Worcester, Massachusetts native actor and comedian Denis Leary, along with Kiefer Sutherland and film director Bobby Farrelly with groups facing off in two teams. The game was held despite the snow which has been forecast for the Boston area.

Then, on January 8th, a double NCAA college hockey doubleheader will take place at Fenway Park as the women’s ice hockey teams of the University of New Hampshire Wildcats and Northeastern University Huskies in the first ever outdoor women’s ice hockey game.

After that game ends, the infamous Green Line Rivalry will come to Fenway as long-time rivals, the 2008 NCAA Men’s Ice Hockey Champions Boston College Eagles take on the 2009 champions, the Boston University Terriers.