Looking at the coverage I can find of the Pens-Kings game in St. Pete:
It was the first major sporting event at the Dome.
Gretzky scored one goal; Mario DNP.
There was concern less than 24 hours before gametime that they wouldn't be able to make an acceptable ice surface, but they did manage to put one together. In the PG, Tom McMillan noted that "there was only one delay because of faulty ice." (No details, alas.) The guy in The Press said, "There were ugly ruts and it was ragged along the boards, but no one really complained about the ice. Or, more important, was injured."
The game had been hyped as a Lemieux-Gretzky showdown, but back issues prevented Lemieux from dressing. And if a tube carrying coolant had actually been sliced by a skate, causing fluid to be sprayed, I think McMillan or I would have noted it in our respective stories. I'll have to chalk that up to a faulty memory, until/unless I learn otherwise.
Looking at the coverage I can find of the Pens-Kings game in St. Pete:
It was the first major sporting event at the Dome.
Gretzky scored one goal; Mario DNP.
There was concern less than 24 hours before gametime that they wouldn't be able to make an acceptable ice surface, but they did manage to put one together. In the PG, Tom McMillan noted that "there was only one delay because of faulty ice." (No details, alas.) The guy in The Press said, "There were ugly ruts and it was ragged along the boards, but no one really complained about the ice. Or, more important, was injured."
The game had been hyped as a Lemieux-Gretzky showdown, but back issues prevented Lemieux from dressing. And if a tube carrying coolant had actually been sliced by a skate, causing fluid to be sprayed, I think McMillan or I would have noted it in our respective stories. I'll have to chalk that up to a faulty memory, until/unless I learn otherwise.