Too Much Nostalgia? A Decennial Reflection on the Heritage Classic Ice Hockey Event

This research note explores the legacy of the Heritage Classic, an outdoor ice hockey event held in Edmonton, Canada in November 2003. The event explicitly and successfully evoked nostalgia for former players, past teams, rural environments, and the egalitarian nature of childhood games, becoming a major international media and tourism event as well as the template for numerous outdoor ice hockey events held around the world. It also provided the Edmonton Oilers hockey club and the event's organizers with both emotional and economic capital at a time when the franchise required support. However, the success of the Heritage Classic meant that the National Hockey League (NHL) and other hockey leagues would organize subsequent outdoor hockey events, thereby minimizing the ability for individual franchises to benefit from their heritage as the Oilers did. Furthermore, little was done locally to build on the success of the Heritage Classic, while the proliferation of similar events globally may have minimized both the media and tourism impacts of subsequent outdoor hockey games.