NHL outdoor games
The 2003 Heritage Classic between the Edmonton Oilers and Montreal Canadiens was the first outdoor regular season game in NHL history.
The annual Winter Classic, held on or around New Year's Day in football or baseball stadiums near NHL home markets in the United States, began with the 2008 game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Buffalo Sabres.
Two of these came in the 1950s and were effectively informal scrimmages; in 1954, the Detroit Red Wings visited Marquette Branch Prison and played a match against the prison inmates in a fenced-off, open air ice rink, while in 1956, the Boston Bruins played a game against several local teams in Bay Roberts, Newfoundland.
In neither case was a formal game structure maintained or score kept, as the NHL teams hopelessly outmatched the hosts.
In 1991, the Los Angeles Kings and New York Rangers played a pre-season game outside Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, in the first officially sanctioned outdoor NHL contest.
The game, and the Pirates club, was allegedly organized as a way for Red Wings manager Jack Adams to make good with two convicted mafia members incarcerated at the prison.
[2] Two years after the 1954 prison match, the Boston Bruins went on a postseason barnstorm of Atlantic Canada in April 1956, which included a stop in Bay Roberts, Newfoundland.
On April 9, 1956, the Bruins played an exhibition game against teams from the Conception Bay North Hockey League on an outdoor artificial ice surface, under similar rules to those of the 1954 prison match.
The game took place in the parking lot of Caesars Palace[5] in Las Vegas, and featured the Los Angeles Kings and the New York Rangers.
[6] The process of keeping the ice cool in the desert heat required three times as much coolant as a standard NHL rink.
[8] From 1997 to 2016, the Los Angeles Kings returned to Las Vegas to play an annual indoors preseason game as part of the Frozen Fury series.
[13][14] This led to the inaugural Winter Classic game on January 1, 2008, with the Pittsburgh Penguins visiting the Buffalo Sabres at Ralph Wilson Stadium.
The two teams had also discussed playing a neutral site game at Beaver Stadium at State College, Pennsylvania, but this did not materialize, due mainly to concerns about Beaver Stadium's plumbing being unable to withstand an event in winter[23][22] On March 6, 2016, the NHL officially announced that the Jets will host the Oilers in the 2016 Heritage Classic during the 2016–17 NHL season, held in October.
The first, branded as the Centennial Classic, between the Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs, was held on January 1 (during the 2016–17 NHL season) to kick off the year.
[34] The 2011 NHL Winter Classic was delayed from its original 1:00 p.m. start time to 8:00 p.m. due to warm temperatures and rain in the forecast.
[36] Sunlight also adversely affected the ice conditions of the first game of the NHL Outdoors at Lake Tahoe, causing the start of the second period to be delayed for several hours.
[38][39][40] The 2013 NHL Winter Classic was originally scheduled to be contested at Michigan Stadium between the Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs.
