MIAMI — There was snow. There was fire. And after years of planning, there was hockey on a baseball field in Miami.<\/p>\n
The Florida Panthers and New York Rangers dropped the puck Friday night in the 44th outdoor game in NHL history. It was the first for Florida, which has won the last two Stanley Cup titles.<\/p>\n
And this Winter Classic wasn’t the warmest outdoor game ever: It was 61 degrees Fahrenheit (17 Celsius) outside when the windows behind what usually is left field began opening at 8:04 p.m., under a calm and clear sky.<\/p>\n
That made it the third-warmest outdoor game in league history, 4 degrees cooler than the 65-degree air on Feb. 27, 2016, when Detroit beat Colorado at Denver’s Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies, and 1 degree cooler than the game on Jan. 25, 2014, when Anaheim beat Los Angeles 3-0 at Dodger Stadium.<\/p>\n
The Rangers \u2014 with a snow effect around their walkway \u2014 were called to the ice at 8:13. The Panthers \u2014 as fire shot skyward along their path \u2014 came out about a minute later. And that’s about when snowflakes began falling from the top of the stadium, as the roof continued opening. <\/p>\n
There was another celebration before faceoff, when Rangers and Panthers players who will be part of the U.S. Olympic hockey team<\/a> at the Milan Cortina Games next month were introduced. Panthers defenseman Seth Jones made the team earlier Friday, as did injured Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk.<\/p>\n Tkachuk placed an American flag over Jones’ shoulders and the crowd roared.<\/p>\n