First Weather Forecasts For UNO Hockey Outdoors Look Ominous

We're now getting close enough to the "Battles on Ice" outdoor hockey game between UNO and North Dakota to start looking at real weather forecasts. I've already started planning; I picked up a box of pocket warmers at Menards yesterday. I bought my tickets back in October, so I'm really looking forward to this one-of-a-kind event.  But the first forecast from KSHB meteorologist Gary Lezak (based in Kansas City) gives me pause.  You can check it out yourself by visiting his new Weather2020 site.  Here's what Lezak's team says for next week:

A cold and stormy week is in the Weather 2020 forecast. This will be an active week of weather across the plains states. Expect a strong and fast moving storm to move across between Monday and Wednesday with snow likely across Nebraska and Iowa and a few rain showers farther south. A powerful storm system will be likely either with that mid-week storm or a weekend storm system around February 10th. Kansas City, Omaha, and Des Moines will likely have snow from this second storm. This is probably not a great week for outdoor activities.

It's rather imprecise at this point, and it confirms my fears from December. Bad weather could happen late next week...but maybe not until Sunday.  All hockey fans care about is Saturday afternoon, though. So all we can do is wait and watch.  It doesn't help that the last two Saturdays would have been great days to be outside for a hockey game; you have to figure the weather is going to turn at some point.  This is Nebraska of course.

There's a ballpark over
there, somewhere. Promise.

I plan to provide periodic updates on the construction of the rink at TD Ameritrade Park, but this first update is pretty brief.  Can't really tell much of anything due to the fog.  Even so, I don't think much is going on yet. The rink for the outdoor game has been set up for the Figure Skating Championships as a warm-up/practice sheet of ice over at the CenturyLink Center, and they are probably still breaking it down in preparation to move it across the street.

The Lincoln Journal-Star had a great article last week about the event.  The Omaha Sports Commission says that over 10,000 tickets have been sold.  Not bad.  I had my hopes this would sell out, but that isn't happening.  Wish it had been promoted more; it's a shame that the Lincoln paper is doing a better job covering this than the World-Herald.