I've got two Winter Classic videos for you. The one above is just a minute long trailer direct from the HBO Sports website. It's a quick sort of whet your appetite look at what's the come. Not sure about the creepy organ-heavy soundtrack, but it certainly got me excited for the first episode.
The second is an extended trailer. The bootleg quality of the video is not the best, in fact the quality reminds me of the What's Happening!! episode where Rerun tapes a Doobie Brothers concert, but it gives you a pretty decent idea of which players will be the primary focus of the behind the scenes documentary.
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[The extended 11:00 minute trailer after the Jump]
From the Flyers perspective it looks like Scott Hartnell will be cast in the role of most-hated Flyer. Danny Briere appears to be the wide-eyed voice of reason. Claude Giroux the breakout star. Chris Pronger will be, well, Chris Pronger. Max Talbot, having gone through the 24/7 experience last season with Pittsburgh, provides the comedy relief.
No surprise that John Tortorella features prominently in the preview. His inability to hide a single emotion will certainly make for good television. Beyond that, Henrik Lundqvist and his perma-stubble will likely pique my wife's interest. Although not spotlighted, likely as a result of his in flux roster status, you figure Sean Avery has to be a big part of this too.
I noticed a couple of minor things that were a bit odd. The first shot of a Flyer in HBO's patented back-lit slo-mo is Jody Shelley. That's the most I've seen of Shelley all year. Perhaps they included him because he's a former Ranger?
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Next, I am not sure why, but they had the Flyers players wear their white helmets with their home orange jerseys. They always wear their black helmets with the home sweater. Not quite sure why they had them wear white. It was kind of distracting.
Finally, you'll be glad to know that by my count they made but a single cheesesteak reference. Good on ya, HBO.
Hopefully HBO Sports posts the official trailer to their YouTube page, but for the time being this will definitely work.
Finally, we're just a little over two weeks away from the series debut. The premiere is set to air December 14th at 10PM.
Update: In true The700Level highly organized fashion, both Matt and I posted about this just about simultaneously. Fortunately, we took different approaches, so you can read his here.