Bettman: Philly was ‘spectacular’ WC host

Now that the Winter Classic in Philly is history, the thoughts turn to how the city stacked up and whats ahead for the NHL.

It was spectacular, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said. We could not have asked for any more from the event. And I think the Alumni Game was a great appetizer to the main eventhaving 45,000 people in here on Saturdayand just the entire reception in the city, the buzz throughout the city, and the crowd today was great.

This was just a terrific event for us, and we are grateful to everybody who was involved, particularly and including the City of Philadelphia.

Theres a feeling that the next Winter Classic has to go to Michigan.

My guess is it will be played in a place we have not been before, Bettman said. So, therefore, in the U.S., youve eliminated five locations.

You can play with the other 25, play with geography and understand that temperature is a factoras evidenced by the fact that we moved two hours today, which I think worked out pretty welland by the way, in that context, thank you to CBS, RDS and NBC for working so well with us, for covering the event so well, and for demonstrating the flexibility we needed to get this right.

Between last year and this year, we have learned a lot about how to move the event, how to make the calls and how to deal with meteorological reports and respond and I think the two-hour delay made for a better game.