It is the most unique event among the four major sports. The Winter Classic takes highly-paid NHL players and turns them into children. It turns an arena into a backyard pond. It turns a baseball stadium into a frozen palace. This season’s Winter Classic, which takes place in Boston’s Fenway Park, will be the third of its kind. The first in Buffalo ended with Sidney Crosby, the face of the NHL, scoring the game winning goal in a shootout. The second matched up two of the original six franchises, Chicago and Detroit, in a high scoring battle, ending 6-4 Red Wings.

From the business side of things, SportsBusiness Journal reported that the NHL sold out sponsorship. The 16 partners spent more than $10 million, double what sponsors spent last season. Here’s a list of all the official partners: Title: Bridgestone Associate sponsors: Honda, Verizon, Geico, U.S. Army Partners: McDonald’s, Reebok, Bud Light, Pepsi, XM, Compuware, Ticketmaster Licensees: EA Sports, Twins, Upper Deck Other: History Channel

Back to the game! As the Boston Bruins and Philadelphia Flyers prepare for Jan. 1, we look the three biggest issues surrounding this year’s Winter Classic.

Weather – My FOX Boston reported that rain is forecasted for New Year’s day. Rain delays are always a possibility in any open baseball stadium, and though they aren’t usually expected in January, the murmurs of rain have everyone nervous. Dan Craig and his ice crew especially. Craig said in an interview this week that the ice could be ready to go two-and-a-half to three hours after heavy rain. There were delays in Buffalo for snow and the game was played amongst flurries. As far as aesthetics go, flurries are more majestic than drizzle, but, as long as the game goes off hitch-less, no one’s going to complain.

TV Ratings – Last season, the Winter Classic set a record as the highest rated regular season NHL game. It drew a 2.9 despite having several high-profile college bowl games such as the Capital One Bowl on ABC (7.2) and the Gator Bowl on CBS (4.3) as air-wave competition. Locally, Chicago, which averaged a 1.07 local rating during 2008-’09, scored big with a 11.8 for the Winter Classic. Will we see a similar buzz for the city of Boston? The Bruins averaged a local rating of 2.16 last season, so, as long as the Lakers aren’t in town, the Winter Classic should score big on Boston TV’s.

Good Game? – This could ruin it all. The Flyers currently sit at the bottom of the Atlantic Division with only 38 points, third lowest in the East. The Bruins are second in the Northeast Division with 45 points and stand sixth in the East. Looks bad, but as far as scoring goes, the Flyers have 106 goals for and 109 goals against. The Bruins have 99 and 94. Not a big difference, or maybe I’m just being optimistic.

The real problem may not be lack of competition, it may be the lack of a household name. The first two featured Sid the Kid and Patrick Kane, this game’s biggest star might be Flyers Chris Pronger or Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas. Not quite Alex Ovechkin in the star power category.

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Matthew Coller is a staff member of the Business of Sports Network, and is a freelance writer. He can be followed on Twitter

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