The NHL's Winter Classic will bring hockey to Gillette Stadium for a New Year's Day matinee between the sport's biggest rivals and original six members – the Boston Bruins and the Montreal Canadiens.
As part of the event, The Hall has merged its STEM education initiative with hockey through a small Hockey in Space display featuring items that have flown in space with American astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut.
While hockey is the focus of the display, the Patriots Super Bowl XLIX championship did manage to briefly intercept the hockey theme with a photograph of Boston at night taken from space with a Super Bowl XLIX Champions swatch in the image. The swatch itself also is included in the framed piece.
The Bruins are prominently featured in exhibit. It includes a small framed 2011 Stanley Cup Champions flag that flew aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis, which launched on July 8, 2011. A Stanley Cup Champions hat worn by Massachusetts astronaut Sunita Williams aboard the International Space Station along with a Bruins sticker she took to space are included.
The picture of beloved Bruins defenseman Bobby Orr's 1970 Stanley Cup winning goal as he flew through the air is an iconic piece of hockey history, and Canadian astronaut Robert Thirsk re-created that moment in space. Thirsk, thanks to the absence of gravity, re-enacted the game-winning moment while wearing Orr's game jersey and 1970 Stanley Cup ring, a photo of which is part of the exhibit. The actual jersey and ring sit on display at the Bobby Orr Hall of Fame in Parry Sound, Ontario.
The local scene is highlighted with a Cohasset High School hockey jersey worn by NASA astronaut Stephen Bowen during expeditions 126, 132 and 133.
The mission and personal patches worn in space by Russian Cosmonaut and hockey fan Aleksandr Samokutayev along with a Nashville Predators jersey worn by NASA astronaut Barry Wilmore during expedition 42 also are on display.
