Pennsylvania hockey teams will be at center ice and on center stage in January for the Winter Classic and the Outdoor Classic.

But don’t forget about the Little Classic.

The first two events will feature professionals playing at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. On Jan. 2, the National Hockey League’s Philadelphia Flyers take on the New York Rangers. On Jan. 6, the American Hockey League’s Hershey Bears challenge the Adirondack Phantoms.

But on Jan. 8, might gives way to mites (8 years old and younger) as the Ice Park at Clipper Magazine Stadium in Lancaster plays host to the inaugural Barnstormers Little Classic youth hockey game.

The event will mark the first time that a sanctioned youth hockey game has been played at the Ice Park, which is in its fifth season. The stadium is the summertime home of the Lancaster Barnstormers minor-league baseball team.

Open to the public

Players from the Regency Panthers Ice Hockey Club from Lancaster will play the York Devils at 9 a.m. and at 10:15 a.m.

The event is open to the public. Net proceeds from the $5 admission will be donated to the nonprofit Arbor Place in Lancaster.

Wil Younger, vice president and general manager of the Regency Panthers program, said he has been working on the Little Classic for a year and a half.

“I know the kids are excited about it,” Younger said. “Our coaches are excited about it.”

The Clipper Magazine Stadium ice sheet measures 135 feet long by 80 feet wide; a professional rink is 200 feet by 85 feet. Unlike a pro rink, the Ice Park boards don’t have glass or netting above them.

Fans watching from picnic deck

“A lot of people want to play hockey here,” said Ed Snyder, stadium operations manager. But the absence of glass, the smaller size, the lack of net moorings, not to mention liability, worked against the idea.

Mite-level hockey was another story.

“Little guys, they can’t even lift the puck,” Snyder said last week. “We thought, ‘Oh, that’s a good idea. They’ll be excited to be here.’ ”

The Little Classic competitors will get a rich experience, from fans watching at ice level and looking down from the stadium’s picnic deck, to the playing of the national anthem, to a hoped-for ceremonial puck drop by Lancaster County native and Philadelphia Flyers prospect Tyler Hostetter.

Younger, whose Lancaster advertising and marketing agency designed the event’s icy logo, said Little Classic merchandise will be for sale, too.

The father of a travel hockey player himself, Younger said the mites will “get an experience out of it that will stay with them for a long, long time.”

Making of an ice park

If you build it, they will come. That’s what they said in “Field of Dreams,” the Kevin Costner movie about an Iowa farmer who plows his crops under in order to build a baseball field.

Lancaster built its own field of dreams, albeit in an urban setting. Clipper Magazine Stadium has been home to the Barnstormers since 2005.

But baseball ends in September and doesn’t return until April. In order to get more use out of the 6,000-seat venue, the Barnstormers created the Ice Park at Clipper Magazine Stadium. Last year, it drew more than 25,000 people.

Playing in right field

The Ice Park occupies the stadium’s right field corner. It is open for public skating Thursday through Sunday until Feb. 12.

Construction began Nov. 1 for the Ice Park’s opening three days before Christmas. A three-person crew removed the right field sod, leveled the base (for drainage purposes, the baseball field has a six-inch drop from second base to right field), and added four tons of sand.

In that sand are 11 sections of flexible nylon coils through which runs a 50-50 blend of water and glycol (antifreeze) that is chilled to 9 degrees. The coils effectively turn the sand into concrete, on top of which the ice surface eventually will be built to four inches thick.

“We started making ice on Dec. 12th,” said Snyder, the stadium operations manager. “And we would have had good ice within five days if we didn’t have rain and warm weather. We had a couple of days in the 60s and it kind of slowed us down.”

The Barnstormers own everything required to create the Ice Park – including an aged Zamboni ice resurfacer – except for the 230-ton chiller unit that the team rents from a New Jersey company.

Snyder drives the Zamboni.

“It’s tough,” he said of learning how to shave the old ice and spread water to form a fresh layer. “Once you get used to it, though – I think it’s soothing now. Especially, I got in here this morning at 8 o’clock and ran it, and it’s quiet. My assistant Tyler (Swezey), this is his first year. I’m trying to teach him how do it.”