Winter Classic is one for the ages

The game was worth only two points in the standings.

But to the 38,000 plus who attended the 2010 Winter Classic, it meant so much more.

Check out photos from the game

After Mark Recchi tied the score at one with 2:18 left in regulation and Marco Sturm put home the game-winner 1:57 into overtime, another chapter had been written in the illustrious history of the Boston Bruins as they beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 2-1.

"It's hard to describe. Just one of those things you experience once in a lifetime," Bruins captain Zdeno Chara said. "The feeling of those people after we scored the winning goal. The dancing. The cheering.

"I'm sure it's going to be with us the rest of our lives."

For 57 minutes, the Flyers rained on Boston's Winter Classic parade, jumping out to a 1-0 lead 4:42 into the second period as Dany Syvret scored his first goal of the season when Bruins netminder Tim Thomas cross-checked a screening Scott Hartnell as the puck was coming his way.

Things looked bleak when Boston squandered a power-play opportunity on a fresh sheet of ice early in the third period.

But the Bruins built waves of pressure on Flyers goaltender Michael Leighton, and the game changed when Recchi, as he had done so many times before, deflected a Derek Morris pass into the back of the net.

"Me and Recchs talk about that play a lot," Morris said. "If I ever get the opportunity where we get a clear lane to make the play, to just get back and get it on his stick.

"He just put his stick in a spot where they couldn't get to it, leaned on it and he did all the rest."

The Winter Classic then became an Instant Classic.

In a split second, the game went from a sleeper to a sleeping giant, with the capacity crowd living off of every shot.

"We needed that win," said forward Patrice Bergeron, who picked up the assist on Sturm's game winner. "The crowd was so loud and in Fenway Park with so much history, it was something we're never going to forget."

And knowing all that was at stake, not just in the standings but in the hearts and memory of all who attended, losing wasn't an option to many of the Bruins players.

"You could feel the energy when we tied it up, but I wanted to take it one step further," Thomas said. "I think everyone on our bench wanted it so bad. When Marco scored the winner, that was one of the most incredible feelings that I can remember."

The NHL struck gold with this Winter Classic concept, with thousands of fans at Fenway coming armed with credit cards and cold hard cash. Merchandise sales were expected to double that of last year's event at Wrigley Field and those who were lucky enough to be here paid $325 in some cases for seats that, given their distance and view of the ice surface, would go for $19 for this same game at TD Garden.

And yet today, the play and dramatics on the ice truly gave the event memories that no amount of money can buy. Memories that many younger Bruins fans will place alongside Game 6 of that Montreal series from 2008, or for those of an older generation, who watched in awe as Bobby Orr dropped the ceremonial first puck only to then witness Sturm score the second most memorable overtime goal in the club's history.

"I think everybody said that in 10 years that Game 6 had to be the most exciting game at the Garden since moving there," Bruins head coach Claude Julien said. "I'm not going to take anything away from our fans at the Garden, because just as in that Game 6, it was unreal how those fans got into it."

It was only two points … and many years worth of memories.

-- Jake Duhaime, Inside Hockey