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What NHL goalie nearly bled to death on the ice?
On March 22, 1989, in a game between the Buffalo Sabres and the St. Louis Blues, the latter’s Steve Tuttle crashed into a Sabres defenceman and went hurtling through the air at Clint Malarchuk, Buffalo’s goaltender. Tuttle’s skate blade pierced Malarchuk’s neck, severing his jugular vein. The goalie would have likely died on the spot if not for trainer Jim Pizzutelli, who stanched the gusher of blood until doctors could operate. Malarchuk ended up with 300 stitches to close a six-inch wound, but he returned to the Sabres’ net 11 days later.
When was the first NHL game played outdoors?
Outdoor NHL games have been a big hit with the fans, the media, and the players lately. The first regular-season match held outdoors was dubbed the Heritage Classic and took place on November 22, 2003, in Edmonton, Alberta. It pitted the Edmonton Oilers against the Montreal Canadiens and was staged in Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium. More than 57,000 spectators braved a bone-chilling -18 degrees Celsius temperature to watch the Habs edge the Oilers 4–3. Less than five years later, on January 1, 2008, a second regular-season NHL match, called the AMP Energy NHL Winter Classic, was played in Orchard Park, New York, between the Buffalo Sabres and the Pittsburgh Penguins. An NHL-record-setting 71,217 fans turned out to see the Penguins beat the Sabres 2–1 after a shootout in which Pittsburgh’s young superstar Sidney Crosby got the final goal. For the first NHL game presented outdoors, though, one has to go back to September 27, 1991, to an exhibition match played in Las Vegas, of all places. The Los Angeles Kings and the New York Rangers took part in an odd promotional affair in the pre-season in an outdoor rink constructed in the parking lot of Caesar’s Palace. No one froze at this game — the desert temperature was about 29 degrees Celsius. But the players had to put up with melting ice and a plague of grasshoppers!