Aarif Deen
We learned back in January that the Colorado Avalanche will be the visiting team for next season’s NHL Winter Classic, hosted by the Utah Mammoth.
The event, which will be hosted at Rice-Eccles Stadium, home of the Utah Utes college football team, now has an official date.
The league announced Wednesday that the game will take place on New Year’s Eve, with a 4 p.m. local time puck drop.
“It’ll be late afternoon, early evening, prime time in the East,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said in a release. “Some of it will be under the lights, and we think it’ll be very cool.”
The Avalanche have played in several outdoor games in the past. In 2016, they hosted the Detroit Red Wings at Coors Field in a Stadium Series game. They also held another Stadium Series game at the Air Force Academy in 2020 against the Los Angeles Kings, before playing the Vegas Golden Knights at Lake Tahoe without fans in 2021.
This is their first time playing in a Winter Classic.
For the Mammoth, this will be their first-ever outdoor game, and only the fourth time the event will be held at a College Football Stadium. The previous six years were all held at Baseball Fields.