Anyone? Outdoor hockey in Chicago?

I’m looking forward to the Blackhawks’ game at Wrigley Field for two reasons.

1. The game.

2. The end of the game.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything like the buildup for the Winter Classic, the outdoors game between the Hawks and the Red Wings to be played on New Year’s Day. I understand the goose-bump factor here: It’s very cool for an NHL game to be played in the elements and even cooler for it to be played in one of the cathedrals of baseball.

But, my goodness. You would think the pope were coming to Wrigley to announce his conversion to Scientology.

The recent arrival of a Zamboni at the old ballpark received more coverage than Carlos Zambrano gets on a good day.

And when that Zamboni fell backward off a truck and almost threw the driver from the ice resurfacer, the TV stations treated it as if it were the Zapruder film. If the guy had been injured, the newspapers headlines the next day would have been, “Zamboni damaged beyond repair,” and Hawks President John McDonough would have been quoted as saying, “In times of sorrow, sports have always served as a salve. The Zamboni would have wanted the game to go on, and go on it will.” What’s interesting to me is the question of why we in the media have dutifully reported every “milestone” the Hawks’ and the NHL’s marketing machines have given us on the road to the big game.

Why were cameras there in the first place to capture the arrival of a Zamboni? Wouldn’t something like that belong in the same slow-news-day category as a water-skiing squirrel?

No one has made us go out and give daily updates on the construction of the rink at Wrigley. We’ve done it on our own. Breathlessly. Why is that?

Are people going to forget about the game if we don’t provide regular reminders? How could it be any more sold out than it already is?

Do we instinctively drop everything when McDonough fires up his imagination, lest we miss the hockey equivalent of Ozzy Osbourne singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game?” Are we embracing the hype because December is a relative dead time in sports -- pre-NFL playoffs, pre-major bowl games, pre-games that matter in the NBA and college basketball?

Or is this hockey guilt from us in the media? Maybe we feel as if we’ve ignored the Hawks for so long we owe them for our relative lack of attention over the years.

The team is playing great hockey right now. That should be enough to spawn interest in the product. The United Center is filled up. People are back to caring about the Hawks. It’s what happens when a franchise finally moves into the 20th Century by showing its games on television and by fielding a good team.

It’s wonderful that the Hawks are meaningful again. I’m just not sure how that leads to feeling obligated to cover the Winter Classic as if it were Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals. I would argue that if the Blackhawks make it that far in the playoffs this season, the hype wouldn’t be nearly what it is for this one game at Wrigley.

I must be missing the magnitude of this. I prefer looking at the game as an interesting curiosity.

A few e-mailers have chided me for already being Winter Classic-weary. Everybody is supposed to be on board, they say.

How’s this: The game should be spectacular. The only way it could be better is if it snows. It would be one of those snow-globe moments. Is that on board enough?

Apparently not. Hockey fans in this town have felt disenfranchised for years. The more ardent ones want you to know that they never lost their love for the game or the team, and they’d also like you to know that they kept a list of those whose passion might have flagged. And if you dare suggest that perhaps -- perhaps -- the buildup to the Hawks-Wings game would make Richard Simmons blush, they accuse you of being anti-hockey.

No, we’re just pro-sanity.

And, of course, the last refuge of people who run out of arguments is to say that anyone who doesn’t appreciate what this moment means for the Hawks is hockey ignorant. Perhaps, but I do know what excessive coverage looks like. It wears a lot of makeup and swings a purse. When the Bears went to the Super Bowl two years ago, there wasn’t this much hype.

If, as some people have suggested, this is the biggest sporting event ever to take place at Wrigley, it’s only because of the long-term ineptitude of the Cubs.

This game should be a lot of fun, but, man, I’ll be glad when it finally arrives.