Today is the 10th Anniversary of the Inaugural Heritage Classic

We've all seen it, the iconic photo of José wearing his toque on top of his mask, with his breath steaming in the cold Edmonton air. Today is the 10th anniversary of that Heritage Classic, played between Montreal and Edmonton on November 22, 2003.

On NHL.com they published a special "Sunday Long Read" on it last Sunday. There are videos and quotes and all sorts of things if you want to check it out.

A quote from José about the cold: The goalies, we had it the worst. Players would go on the bench and it was like a five-star resort there. They had heaters and hot packs, whatever they needed. Me and Ty needed to stay in net.

Here is a nice recap of the event. You can see some shots of José in the dressing room along with on the ice.


And here's a video just about his toque.


And his quote: We had a practice the day before and the old-timers had a practice and they had the toque on during practice with the pom-pom and the vintage kind of look. When my brother saw the practice, I think he saw Guy Lafleur skating around with that toque. He told me it would be real cool if I put it on top of my helmet. So I kind of kept it in mind. I talked to Gervais and his assistant, Bobby Boulanger. Bobby did a great job of putting tape in so it stuck properly. I thought I would put it on for warmups and then take it off for the game. After warmups, all the guys said, “It looks so cool; you’ve got to keep it for the game.”