Hey, did you know the Flyers are playing in an outdoor game this weekend against the hated – and, sadly, superior – Penguins, and NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT IT? Outdoor games – the Winter Classic – were once so perfect. They were #adorable. The little baby cherubs of sports. But then the league had to bastardize them by scheduling a series of games in locations where people don’t care about hockey, and, just like that, the mystique was gone. The allure went poof. All because The Shield saw a pile of cash and seized upon it like Scott O’Neil diving atop a proposed ticket upcharge. Gimme gimme gimme. Keep in mind, this is the same league whose commissioner who once allowed his all-star game to be played on a Tuesday night on Versus, so we’re not exactly dealing with a full unit here.

Don’t get me wrong– outdoor games are still cool and better than the average bear, but they’ve lost… something. Not having 24/7 hurts, but it’s more than that. They feel almost routine now. The intrigue about building an outdoor rink is all but completely gone. Still, here are some pictures of the water they’re freezing in Pittsburgh:

Freezing, you say? It’s going to be around 70 in Pittsburgh through Friday. Such is the case when you schedule a money-making outdoor game at the tail end of winter (and such is the case when global warming creates goofy weather patterns). The warm weather shouldn’t be a problem because the guy in charge of the operation, Dan Craig, is a boss, and this is the same crew that built a rink in Los Angeles. Thankfully, temperatures are expected to drop to around 40 by game time Saturday night, though there is rain in the forecast.

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

“We’ve had a couple events now that we’ve had heavy rains,” Craig said. “We got a good crew that is very well-versed on the way that we’re gonna remove excess. We monitor it and we run the (coolant) truck as hard as we can until it can’t keep up anymore, and then we have a strategy to remove ice off the back end of the rink.”

That strategy involves custom-built, smaller-than-standard “zamboni” machines. On the other end of the spectrum are the thermal blankets — reflective on the top side, white on the back side — that were protecting the ice from Tuesday afternoon’s sunlight. You can buy something similar at Home Depot.

Those stay in place until temperatures drop to the low 50s or the sun goes down, Craig said.

And here’s a timelapse of the ice being made: