As Rangers-Sabres get ready for CitiField clash, a look back at how NHL's Winter Classic got started 

The Winter Classic is the brainchild of a bold and persistent television executive whose original plan was to capture the magic of the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry when NBC picked up broadcast rights to the NHL in 2004.

Jon Miller was steadfast in his belief that an outdoor hockey game would be a boon for the league, an event which would charm even the most casual fans. His determination was the genesis for the first Classic which took place on New Year’s Day, 2008 in Buffalo, and the event was an instant success.

So much so that it became an annual tradition, Monday’s game between the Rangers and Sabres at Citi Field marking the 10th anniversary of the Winter Classic after Buffalo was the only NHL team willing to take a chance on hosting the inaugural game.

“I felt that if we were ever gonna really try to embrace the NHL and really grow it in this country, we had to continue to innovate,” says Miller, president of programming for NBC Sports Group. “You’ve got your regular season, you’ve got your playoffs, All-Star Game, Stanley Cup, which are all spectacular events. But you needed something that would really galvanize.”

NBC was in search of new programming for New Year’s Day after mostly getting out of the college bowl business. Two events got Miller’s imagination rolling: The Heritage Classic in Edmonton between the Oilers and Canadiens at Commonwealth Stadium from November 2003, the NHL’s first outdoor regular-season game, and the Red Sox’s epic 3-0 comeback to defeat the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS.

So Miller had the idea of having the Bruins play the Rangers at Yankee Stadium on Jan. 1, 2005 as a way to kick off the network’s coverage of the NHL, with college football essentially ceding the daytime window on New Year’s Day. Of course, the 2004-05 lockout ultimately made it impossible, but before that there were mixed reactions to the idea.

First Miller took it to former NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol — “He was used to me coming in with some crazy ideas.” There was some support from within, including from executive producer Sam Flood.

“I was all into it because when I played high school hockey in the Boston area, my original rink I played at was outdoors,” Flood said. “So I knew how much fun it was to play outdoors under the elements, and ultimately that’s how the game was meant to be played.”

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman was wary of college football, said Miller, who argued why the 1 p.m. time slot the Classic is played in would work. The league didn’t have a special-events division, and there were feasibility concerns about setting up a rink in a baseball stadium.

The Bruins and Rangers had interest, but the Rangers can’t give up any Garden home dates as part of MSG’s tax-exempt status — the reason the Rangers are the away team for Monday’s game in Flushing.

Miller then took the concept to the Stadium in a meeting with Yankees president Randy Levine and COO Lonn Trost.

“They were like, ‘A hockey game at a baseball stadium? And in the House that Ruth built? I don’t think so,’” Miller said. “They didn’t really embrace it too much. They shut the Stadium down in October and they would’ve had to get everything working again, open up the pipes. There were just a lot of reasons.

“Basically everybody that I went to said no — very nicely and politely, kind of said, ‘Well, it’s an interesting idea, but we don’t think it’s ever gonna work.’”

Similar headwinds stalled Miller’s vision for a 2006 game as well, but two new characters helped create momentum for it. Late in 2006, Miller took Seth Winter, who had recently become NBC Sports’ head of sales, to meet Bettman and a new NHL addition, John Collins, who became COO in 2008.

Miller and Collins had a longstanding working relationship from when Collins was an executive with the NFL. The two went off to a corner of a conference room at NHL headquarters and Miller told Collins about his idea for an outdoor game. Collins said he’d bring in a special-events group and see what he could do.

At a lunch in early spring of 2007, Collins told Miller, who was adamant about having the contest be a regular-season game, that all but one team in the NHL wouldn’t agree to hosting such an event. The Sabres were the only organization who were willing to do it at what was then named Ralph Wilson Stadium, home of the Bills. Gears promptly shifted toward finding an opponent.

Sidney Crosby was about to enter his third NHL season, becoming the new face of the league after putting up 102 points and 120 points in his rookie and sophomore campaigns. Pittsburgh seemed like an ideal fit as it boasted the young superstar and is a few hours from Buffalo. Penguins president Dave Morehouse loved the idea, and off they went.

“I always thought it would happen,” Flood said. “I just knew it would take a lot of work and Jon would have to use a lot of yapping energy talking to people to get them to agree. But the yapping energy was worth it.”

Aside from all of the hockey logistics, there was the matter of branding. Miller wanted to call the event the Ice Bowl after the famed 1967 NFL title game between Green Bay and Dallas. Turns out a toy company had the trademark for it, so the league and network came up with Winter Classic.

When Miller and others from NBC arrived at the stadium on Jan. 1, 2008, they were thrilled not just with what they saw inside, but out in the parking lots: Pucks being flung, footballs tossed, burgers grilled all over the place.

“It was like the tailgate scene out of the AFC Championship Game, 1991 when the Raiders played the Bills there and the Bills blew them out,” Miller said.

The game couldn’t have gone better for the involved parties. Snow helped create a spellbinding spectacle, caught by unique camera angles included one from an airplane. The game went to a shootout and it was none other than Crosby who scored to end it.

Miller’s tenacity paid off enormously.

“From that, we realized this was gonna be more than a one-off thing,” he said. “This had the chance to be something that would endure for a long time.”

And it has.

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