MINNEAPOLIS — Weather forecasts two weeks out don’t mean much, but one thing’s for sure: Mike Craig is going to be getting the Winter Classic rink at Target Field ready for one of the colder outdoor NHL games in some time. 
Craig, the National Hockey League’s senior manager of facilities operations/hockey operations, is leading the team that is building the ice at the Minnesota Twins baseball stadium. His group started loading its gear on Thursday, Dec. 16, with some site preparation work ahead of his first media availability on Friday afternoon.
“We are getting close,” Craig said. “It’s getting exciting for sure.”
Craig said the 32,000 square feet of decking will start going down on Friday, and the team of 200 workers will spend the first week building everything that’s needed. Dec. 20, he said is a big day; that’s when the boards go.
“That’s really when it starts to look like a hockey rink out there,” he said. “(It) looks like we’re gonna have some really good weather for hockey and making nice outdoors this time around here. So forecast is really in our favor.”
The 2022 Winter Classic is the 10th regular season, outdoor NHL game to be played in a baseball stadium. Craig said that there is no advantage to holding the game on a baseball field as opposed to a football field.
“There’s a little bit of working with the field and the infield with the clay,” he said. “What’s happening out there as we lay down basically the stage, so that gives us a very stable steady base to work from and we do that no matter where we go. So because of that there’s a lot of consistency there.”
The Wild’s Jared Spurgeon and Nick Bjugstad were also on hand to get their first look at early progress. Both have played in NHL Stadium Series games — Spurgeon with the Wild in 2016 and Bjugstad with the Penguins in 2019. But Bjugstad, a native of Blaine, Minn., also played outdoor games with his high school team as part of the 2008 Hockey Day Minnesota in Baudette Bay, on the Rainy River which is the border between the U.S. and Canada. The Bengals lost 1-0 to Roseau High School.
Playing for the University of Minnesota, he lost 3-2 to Wisconsin at Soldier Field in Chicago as part of the 2013 OfficeMax Hockey City Classic.
“My high school one was the most treacherous,” Bjugstad said, referring to his freshman year game in northern Minnesota. “It was minus 20 (degrees) and obviously they didn’t have an NHL set up. But it was a very cool memory.”
Spurgeon talked about the light snow falling at TCF Bank Stadium on the U of M campus as the Wild finished a 6-1 win over Chicago. Bjugstad did not wax poetic over the rain that fell towards the end of the Penguins 4-3 overtime loss to Philadelphia. But both talked glowingly about playing outdoors in this setting.
“That’s where you grew the love for the game,” Bjugstad said. “I remember my dad taking me out, my feet getting so cold, bawling my eyes out, going in the warming house. Hopefully I’m not doing that this game. It’s just the best time to play hockey as a kid and the most fun.”
Spurgeon said his dad had an outdoor rink for the family for a couple of years, and became the spot for the Wild captain and his friends to hang out.
“Whenever we want to just hop out back in the backyard and play,” he said. “There’s no rules, really, you can do whatever you want and not not being told what to do by coaches. So you can try whatever you want. But it’s just a lot of memories. And to see it take shape here is pretty special.”
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