Only this was hockey, and it was the Blackhawks giving up a big early lead to a visiting team and getting spanked, not the Cubs.

Hmm, maybe Bartman was here.

How else but via some silly little jinx could the Hawks have spoiled their first outdoor game, in front of 40,818 New Year's Day hockey fans and a national TV audience, blowing a 3-1 lead by letting the Wings score five unanswered goals in 22 minutes?

Ah, but as every couch potato taking a brief respite from the endless college bowl tube menu could tell you -- this was not about the game.

Not about the score, anyway.

This was about novelty, winter, cold, a hockey rink built on top of second base at a historic Baseball park, and lots and lots of self-reference and back-patting.

This open-air meeting between the Hawks and Wings had been in the planning for nearly a year, and NHL workers arrived in town more than two weeks ago to set up shop, prepare the park, beat the drums and remind all that this was a very big deal for a sport that was nearly defunct four years ago.

How important are these outdoor extravaganzas to the league? They're called ''Winter Classics,'' which is a tad self-indulgent considering there have been only two of them, and only three outdoor games total, but they're big. Something to distinguish the sport from all the other indoor entertainment competitors.

THINK BEARS AND BUKICH

The game certainly was huge for the Hawks and president McDonough, who lobbied commissioner Gary Bettman long and hard for the deal, because it signals the ongoing return to relevance of a franchise that contributed mightily to the recent near-collapse of the league by being so primitively run and nose-stinking bad.

''It was a special game for everybody,'' Hawks coach Joel Quenneville said from deep in the recesses of Wrigley, like Lou Piniella in true winter ball. ''It wasn't just another game.''

That's for sure.

With a reported opening temperature of 31.9 degrees and Lake Michigan winds gusting over the right-field wall at nearly 20 mph, the contest had the ambience of a winter Bears game from the Rudy Bukich era.

The Red Wings looked like candy canes in their striped-socks retro outfits, and the snow covering the Baseball field everywhere except the brown pitcher's mound, which looked like a cookie left on the kitchen counter (nice touch, John), was pure Martha Stewart effect.

There was no snow anywhere else in Wrigleyville, folks. Some of this Wrigley white stuff even had been made by machine.

Novelty and decorating were the stars. Do you really think fans would prefer watching all hockey games outdoors?

Indeed, how amazing is it that water can be turned into ice outdoors in Chicago in January?

Still, things went well, and nature cooperated.

When I asked McDonough what his biggest fear was, he said instantly, ''Rain.''

Biggest hurdle?

''Detroit's locker room being three blocks away.''

Actually, the Wings dressed in the visitors' clubhouse, which is up several flights of stairs and around corners and through tunnels but still in the ballpark.

The Hawks got the Cubs' quarters. Biggest difference between hockey and Baseball? Smell. There is nothing in all the world like a hockey glove, my friends.

After the game, the Hawks players looked and sounded rather bummed out. The defending NHL champion Wings now have scorched them 10-4 in the last two games, spanning just three days.

'ABSOLUTELY INSANE'

''It would have been much more fun to win,'' said Martin Havlat, who scored the Hawks' second goal. ''But it was still a lot of fun. Different.''

Different, as in the gigantic, antique, hand-operated scoreboard in center field keeping score like this was a three-inning Cubs-Sox game.

Different, as in the oddball sextet of Ferguson Jenkins, Ryne Sandberg, Billy Williams, Bobby Hull, Denis Savard and Stan Mikita singing a bastardized ''Take Me Out to the Ball Game'' during a break in the third period.

Different in that some attendees were apparently still hammered from New Year's Eve, and there were lots of Detroit fans in the, ahem, mix.

But overall, it was a nice thing. ''It was absolutely insane,'' Hawks forward Kris Versteeg said. He meant that in a good way.

Like ''The Nutcracker'' being performed in a snowstorm.

It's a minor detail, one supposes, that Chicago teams just can't win the big ones in the Friendly Confines.