Connor Bedard was present at Wrigley Field on Wednesday when the legendary Chicago Cubs ballpark was selected as the stadium for the 2025 NHL Winter Classic.
In just his second year in the league, the rookie phenom will play the first outdoor game of his young career when the Chicago Blackhawks welcome the St. Louis Blues to the Windy City.
“I think if you ask any kid, there’s a bucket list of things and an outdoor game of course is one of them,” the 18-year-old told NHL.com's Tracey Myers. “It’s a pretty exciting announcement.”
Bedard threw out the first pitch at a Cubs game back in July, and he confirmed that he did play baseball growing up — well, one year of T-ball.
“It was pretty fun being out there and obviously when it’s full and everything, it’s unreal,” he continued. “But when there’s no one there, it’s peaceful and you’re just kind of looking at it. It’s pretty special. I find all those older buildings and stuff like that pretty cool, so this is definitely one of those.”
Bedard is leading all NHL rookies with 15 goals and 33 points over his first 39 career games, despite not playing a game since suffering a broken jaw against the New Jersey Devils back on Jan. 5.
Next year's Winter Classic a 2017 rematch
This won't be the first time that Chicago and St. Louis have met in an outdoor game. The 2017 Winter Classic, which was staged at Busch Stadium in Missouri, pitted the two Central Division dwellers against each other. The Blues came out on top in that one, 4-1.
This also isn't the first time a Winter Classic has been played at Wrigley Field; the Hawks lost to the Detroit Red Wings in the league's second iteration of the event back on New Year's Day of 2009. The Wings won 6-4 in front of 40,818 spectators that time.