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:
“Every winter the liquid and trembling surface of the pond, which was so sensitive to every breath, and reflected every light and shadow, becomes solid to the depth of a foot or a foot and a half, so that it will support the heaviest teams, and perchance the snow covers it to an equal depth, and it is not to be distinguished from any level field. Like the marmots in the surrounding hills, it closes its eyelids and becomes dormant for three months or more.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“That age will be rich indeed when those relics which we call Classics, and the still older and more than classic but even less known Scriptures of the nations, shall have still further accumulated, when the Vaticans shall be filled with Vedas and Zendavestas and Bibles, with Homers and Dantes and Shakespeares, and all the centuries to come shall have successively deposited their trophies in the forum of the world. By such a pile we may hope to scale heaven at last.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)