NHL Winter Classic - Future Sites

Future Sites

Due to the popularity of the event, every NHL team has requested to participate in the Winter Classic either as the host or the visiting team. Numerous locations have been mentioned in the media as potential sites for future Winter Classics, including Citi Field, Target Field, FedEx Field, Busch Stadium, Coors Field, Yankee Stadium, Ohio Stadium, Gillette Stadium, the proposed Canadian Motor Speedway in Fort Erie, Ontario, and even non-sports venues like the National Mall or Central Park.

To date, every Winter Classic has been held at either an NFL or MLB stadium. The 2013 game would have been the first edition played at a college football stadium, although a second rink was to be constructed at an MLB stadium for the series of non-NHL events that are traditionally played as part of the festivities. Due to the 2012–13 NHL lockout, the game has since been rescheduled for January 1, 2014.

Football stadiums are preferred, both for the larger seating capacity and better sight lines. However, the NFL season is either the late stages of the regular season or the early stages of the playoffs around New Year's Day, disqualifying roughly half of all NFL stadiums (the number varies; several NFL stadiums also have domed or retractable roofs, which would also disqualify them from hosting). In contrast, MLB stadiums are almost always available since baseball is in the off-season. In addition, if the stadium is available for numerous days before and after the classic, the ice can be maintained and used for alumni or college games. A significant number of the largest college football stadiums cannot be used because they are located in relatively warm climates that make it difficult to maintain a rink for the time required for all Winter Classic festivities. Even without the climate issue, several large college football stadiums also host bowl games around New Year's Day; the league needs at least one week to build the ice and several days to melt and disassemble the rink. As of 2013, as previously mentioned, all six Winter Classics will have been held between teams in an area bounded by the Great Lakes to the north, the Mississippi River to the west, the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Potomac and Ohio Rivers to the south (the area where the NHL is most popular and where the climate is generally the most favorable). As of 2012, only three bowl games—the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium, the Pizza Bowl in Detroit, and the Military Bowl in Washington, D.C.—are held in this territory, and the Pizza Bowl is held in an indoor stadium.

There are also several Major League Soccer and minor league baseball stadiums with the capacity to host such games, which are out of use in late December and early January. One drawback in regard to minor and college stadiums is their generally rural location, farther from metropolitan areas. Also, most MLS and even the largest minor league baseball sites hold only a few more thousand seats than indoor arenas. College stadiums also have fewer luxury boxes and are not as modern as professional stadiums (for instance, Citizens Bank Park was chosen for the 2012 Winter Classic over Franklin Field despite Franklin Field's larger capacity, most likely due to Franklin Field's age). Motorsports venues also hold the capacity to host such events, but their expansiveness generally makes for difficult sightlines, and like college and minor league stadiums, they are also generally very far away from major metropolitan areas.

Tennis courts such as Arthur Ashe Stadium and the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, although they have hosted outdoor pro basketball games, cannot host the Winter Classic due to the courts' playing surfaces (120×60 feet) being too small to accommodate an NHL rink (200×85 feet).