ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — 2 On Your Side talked with an expert on Wednesday about the things you can do to try to stay warm if you're going to the game.
"You're not moving around like you would be hiking, so you can be a little less mobile and more like the kids on 'Christmas Story,' where they get pushed over," Mike Radomski said.
Radomski is the Chief Adventure Officer with Outside Chronicles, and he knows what's he's talking about when it comes to staying warm outside.
"If you have any kind of fleece or down insulating layers, I would put those on over your base layer, and then just like hiking, you're going to want a shell that prevents wind. It's usually called a hard shell," Radomski said.
Radomski also says to wear layers on your legs. Merino base layer tights work under your pants, or fleece-lined pants are good too. And he says ski pants work great on top to block the wind.
For this game, Radomski says skip the tight clothes. Tight clothes block blood flow. He also says to leave the sneakers at home.
"You want to wear some sort of boot that has insulation. Usually comes in 200-gram, 400-gram, 800-gram, or even 1,000-gram. That's going to be the best. If your footwear doesn't have insulation, it's going to be really hard to keep your feet warm, especially against that cold concrete that you're going to be standing against," Radomski said.
Radomski suggests wearing socks, putting a plastic bag over them, then putting on a second pair of socks on before putting your boots on. Just make sure your feet and toes have room to wiggle around.
And we know it's tempting, but Radomski says unless you have special gloves, you might want to leave your phone tucked away close to your body. It will conserve the battery, and if you take your fingers out of your gloves, you're exposing them to the cold.
For your fingers, he says some people wear a surgeon's glove under a bigger glove, but he prefers a lighter weight glove under a mitten to keep warm. You need to make sure you're moving around and wiggling your toes and fingers to keep the blood flowing if you start getting cold. If you feel tingling or burning, he says get inside right away to warm up.
Radomski also says if you're using hand warmers and feet warmers, don't wait until you get to the game to use them.
"My experience is you want to get those activated and working while you're still at warm temperatures, either at the car before you actually go out in the cold, or at your house. Once you get to the game, and it's going to be zero degrees, that chemical reaction doesn't take place really fast, and it might be an hour before you actually feel warmth out of those chemical hand warmers if at all," Radomski said.
And to protect exposed skin, Radomski says cover your head and put a hat on top of that layer, and put Vaseline on your face to protect it right before the game.
A lot of people aren't going to like this, but Radomski is saying to avoid alcohol at this particular game.
"That's a vasodilator, so what that means, it actually opens up your blood vessels, and takes the hot blood from your core and takes it out to your extremities, which makes you feel warm for a little while. But in the long run, that's actually detrimental to keeping you warm for long term," Radomski said.
"I'd also say avoid caffeine if you can because that does just the opposite. It's called a vasoconstrictor. It actually constricts your blood vessels and doesn't send a lot of blood to your extremities, so your hands and feet could actually get cold from drinking a lot of caffeine."
Radomski also has a winter hiking challenge going on to help people explore the outdoors.