I am a bit concerned that having so many outdoor NHL games will wear down the novelty of these events. However, it is brilliant marketing by the league and NBC to schedule two of these games this weekend.

With no real football to speak of–the Pro Bowl doesn’t count as real football–the NHL and NBC should gain many non-hockey viewers looking for alternatives with their remotes. There will be appeal to see how you can pull off an outdoor game at Dodger Stadium on Saturday night. Then the outdoor game on Sunday at Yankee Stadium will provide a sneak preview for how cold Roger Goodell and his pals will be in watching the Super Bowl the following week.

The NHL and NBC wouldn’t generate nearly the buzz or ratings with two regular-season indoor games this weekend. So a tip of the cap to those in the marketing department.

Here’s what NBC said about the games during a teleconference this week:

Jeremy Roenick (working both games): Being at Dodger Stadium, I think, is epic for the National Hockey League and I think it’s epic for NBC. It’s going to be interesting — the elements, playing in those elements — I think people are going to be really energized and excited to see that kind of game and our kind of broadcast put over the airwaves — which is going to be totally different than we saw over in Detroit with the Winter Classic.

Moving on to Yankee Stadium — it’s going to be a long flight. But again, I think Doc put it perfectly. Such a perfect place to have a game like this in such, I think, a historic — not so much building, but just the overall – the history behind the Yankees and being in New York.

NBC executive producer Sam Flood: The only concern now is how bright the sun will be on Sunday because it’s going to be a beautiful, cold, sunny day and we just got to make sure that the eye black under the players eyes so that they can see the puck and look as mean as the NFL players.

Doc Emrick on playing in Yankee Stadium:  Selfishly I wish we were still in the old stadium because there would be a lot more history that I wouldn’t have to qualify by saying over in the other parking lot where the old place was. But those are just phrases that are easy to rule out.

Flood on having too many outdoor games: And in terms of the number of games we’ve got to see how this plays out this year. The NHL obviously is going to study it and see how it plays and we’ll look at the ratings and we’ll look at where we all are and I think we’ll all have a good sense of it.

But until you try something you don’t know how it’s going to be so it’s not worth guessing whether it’s the greatest thing ever or maybe we’ve gone too far, we’ll see and hopefully it’s the greatest thing ever and we continue to have some fun like this but we’ll get to the right place.