"The winters of my childhood were long, long seasons. We lived in three places - the school, the church, and the skating rink, but our real life was on the skating-rink. Real battles were won on the skating-rink. Real strength appeared on the skating-rink. The real leaders showed themselves on the skating-rink." - Roch Carrier, "The Hockey Sweater"
A synonym for the word "classic" is "simple". The amount of work that goes into planning and executing an event like today may steer us from believing that this is just a simple old game of hockey, played outdoors, like it was in the beginning.