The NHL's extremely late Lake Tahoe game created some haunting scenes

Playing hockey in the dead of night.

Everybody dunked on the NHL on Saturday when its plan to play a game on the shores of Lake Tahoe failed because the sun came out, reflected off all the white snow and made it both impossible to see and impossible for the ice to stay ice.

How was the league supposed to predict this well-understood and completely expected scientific phenomenon?!?!

Yes, the NHL probably should have had a better plan in place, but ultimately I think the league deserves some credit for trying something unique in the first place. Sports has been disrupted in so many ways over the past year. We’re accustomed to adapting by now, no?

Besides, the fact that the final two periods of the Avalanche-Golden Knights game was delayed until 12 p.m. ET (or 9 local in Tahoe) meant that we got interesting photos of a different sort.

There are no mountains rising in the background. No shimmering lake. Instead the game was played against a pitch-black backdrop — and won by Colorado, 3-2, in a contest that ended up taking 10 hours and 37 minutes to complete.

Here’s how it looked once it finally got going again.