The 2027 Winter Classic is headed out west.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announced on Friday night that the Utah Mammoth and Colorado Avalanche will face off in the league’s next annual Outdoor Game.
The tilt will be held at the University of Utah’s Rice-Eccles Stadium on New Year’s Eve, December 31, 2026. The game will be aired nationally on TNT, while Sportsnet will air the game in Canada.
Fingers crossed the ZAMMOTH will be there.
The matchup at the Utes’ on-campus football venue will mark the first outdoor game for the Utah franchise, which is in its third year since relocating from Arizona. The attendance record at Rice-Eccles Stadium is 54,383 when the University of Utah football team played BYU in 2024.
Next season’s Winter Classic will be the 18th in league history and the 47th NHL regular-season outdoor game. The Utah Mammoth will officially become the 32nd NHL franchise to participate in an outdoor game when the puck is dropped.
The 2026 Winter Classic, held on January 2, pitted the Florida Panthers against the New York Rangers at LoanDepot Park in Miami. The Rangers won the game 5-1. Last year’s Stadium Series Game saw the Tampa Bay Lightning defeat the Boston Bruins 6-5 in the shootout in front of 64,617 fans at Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium. The game notably featured a goalie fight between Andrei Vasilevskiy and Jeremy Swayman.
