The NHL Winter Classic is an annual event held by the National Hockey League (NHL) on or around New Year's Day in which a regular-season hockey game is played outdoors, in an area hosted by an NHL team. The first outdoor NHL regular season game was the 2003 Heritage Classic held in Edmonton between Edmonton and Montreal. The first Winter Classic was held in 2008. The event featured only American teams for its first five years. The 2014 game will feature its first Canadian team, as the Toronto Maple Leafs are scheduled to play against the Detroit Red Wings. The Canadian counterpart to the NHL's American Winter Classic series is the NHL's Canadian Heritage Classic series.
Read more about NHL Winter Classic: List of NHL Winter Classics, History, List of NHL Outdoor Games, Notes, Impact, Ratings, Future Sites, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words winter and/or classic:
“How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen,
What old December’s bareness everywhere!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when corruption has just begun to set in. The serpent has shown his scaly head in the undergrowth. The apple gleams on the tree. The old drama of the Fall is ready to start all over again.”
—Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)