REGINA--The teardown is well underway at Mosaic Stadium after an exciting weekend of outdoor hockey.

Fans from all over Canada and beyond descended on Regina for the 2019 Heritage Classic and Prairie Classic, and they didn’t leave disappointed.

“It’s a good experience, I’m glad they brought it in, they should have done it years ago because this is a hockey town,” said one fan.

“It was excellent, I’d do it again, so bring one back again next year,” added another.

Almost 50,000 fans attended the two outdoor games.

A sold out crowd witnessed the Heritage Classic, which saw the Winnipeg Jets top the Calgary Flames 3-2 in overtime in the first NHL regular season game played in Saskatchewan.

Sunday’s Prairie Classic was the highest attended Regina Pats game in franchise history with 15,401 fans in the stands. The Pats came out with a 5-4 loss in overtime to the Calgary Hitmen.

“Overall, it seemed like the NHL was really happy, the teams were really happy, our staff were thrilled and I’m just so proud of our team, I’m so proud of our community, so proud of our fans, we represented ourselves really well,” Evraz Place president and CEO Tim Reid said. “Now that it’s coming to a close, we’re going to have a lot of memories and a lot of moments to share in the future.”

Evraz projects that the two games will have pumped about $15-million into the local economy as hotels and restaurants were full throughout the weekend.

“This is a hockey town, we showed it last night, we’re showing it again today with supporting our local team and it’s a wonderful game, the weather is fantastic, we have lots of people in the crowd, so it’s great,” Regina Mayor Michael Fougere said.

Young and old braved the wind and cold to take in all the events over the weekend.

Regina Pats captain Austin Pratt feels the impact of the weekend will be felt for a long time.

“It just builds hockey in Regina for sure, it’s tough not having an NHL team in your province, but events like this help build the community,” he said.

With the success of these two outdoor games, Reid says it’s further proof the Queen City can attract world class events.

“People paid attention and more importantly, we probably realized ourselves that we’re capable of doing some really great things when we as a city work together,” he said.

The ice and boards will soon be gone and it will be back to football this week at Mosaic Stadium.