NHL Winter Classic will use Wrigley Field rooftops and other Chicago Cubs traditions for the New Year’s Eve game

As a chilly mist hovered over Wrigley Field on Friday afternoon, construction workers moved boxes across a large graphic of ivy where the third-base line normally would be. Four days before a Tuesday afternoon puck drop for the NHL Winter Classic, the conversion from baseball ballpark to hockey rink is taking shape for the outdoor game between the Chicago Blackhawks and St. Louis Blues. “These are the exciting days for us — it’s where the field actually does come to life,” NHL chief content officer Steve Mayer said. “There’s a lot of work and a lot of great people that put this all together. … “If you’ve been watching the progress from last week all the way till today, step by step, first, (we) put that rink out there and start building ice, and (then) we lay down an armor deck across the whole field. And now it’s the next layer, which is the graphics that sort of bring this to life. And that’s the exciting part. … “That’s where it really starts to feel real. That’s when you realize you’re also within a week of the game.” Mayer stood in front of cameras with the converted home of the Chicago Cubs as his backdrop. “You’re probably looking at about 50% complete,” he said. More graphics and structures need to be installed, as well as artificial snow. Mayer also revealed that the Winter Classic will borrow a couple of Cubs traditions: the rooftops and the seventh-inning-stretch song, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” “We’ve really tried to take advantage of what would be a Cubs game in so many different matters,” Mayer said. “And the rooftops will be pretty cool. That’s something that we didn’t have in 2009,” when Wrigley first played host to the Classic on New Year’s Day and the Detroit Red Wings beat the Hawks 6-4. “One of the things that we constantly thought about was, OK, we were here in 2009, how do we make it feel and be different?” he said. “And it’s everything from the way we’re presenting the feel, but also the music. We really went (with the flavor of) Chicago with Chance the Rapper and Smashing Pumpkins. “There’ll be traditions of Cubs games that you’ll see, that we’re just going to kind of bring over to what we’re going to do in our game, really taking advantage of this city, which has such a great sports tradition. … So why not play into that?” As for “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” Mayer said the NHL will have its own version, which will take place after the second intermission during the first timeout. Mayer said to gather the vibe of Cubs games, he and other members of the league’s events staff visited Wrigley twice to take it all in. “There’ll be Cubs that will be in attendance,” he said. “We’ll play to as much of the tradition as possible. This is one of the great landmarks in professional sports, and we recognize that we’re honored that we’re here, we’re honored that we’re able to do a second game at Wrigley Field, and our fans love it.”