More Dream Winter Classic Venues for NHL's Outdoor Showcase
Even after 17 years the NHL Winter Classic is still going strong and remains the signature event of the league's regular season.
It has been held at classic baseball cathedrals, NFL football stadiums, iconic college football stadiums and new modern ballparks.
The 2024 game is being played at T-Mobile Park in Seattle, where the NHL's two most recent expansion franchises—the Seattle Kraken and Vegas Golden Knights—will face off.
The puck does not even drop on the current Winter Classic before hockey fans start debating where the next game should be. So let's take a look at a few more dream venues for the future, whether they are realistic or not.
Caesars Palace (Las Vegas)
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Did you know that decades before the NHL played its first Winter Classic, and long before the Vegas Golden Knights were even a dream in anybody's mind, the league played an outdoor game at Caesar's Palace?
Well. It did.
It was an exhibition game prior to the 1991-92 season featuring the New York Rangers and Los Angeles Kings, and footage of it actually exists.
Look at the crowd for that game! Even before Vegas became the hockey market that it is now.
Now that Las Vegas has one of the NHL's best teams and a Stanley Cup championship, it would be incredible to figure out a way to make it work again for a Winter Classic.
It would have to wait a couple of years since Vegas is playing in this year's game, but the Golden Knights are a big enough draw and popular enough team that they should get an opportunity to host it in some way in the near future.
Beaver Stadium (State College, PA)
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The Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers have played a couple of outdoor games against each other in the past, but never a Winter Classic. Even though both teams have played in multiple Winter Classics and non-Pennsylvania hockey fans might be tired of seeing them get these games, there is a perfect, central location right in the middle of the state that would make for an incredible neutral-site contest.
It is Beaver Stadium on the campus of Penn State University.
This has been a dream setting for the Penguins and Flyers for years, and it would not be the first college football stadium to host the game. Michigan Stadium and Notre Dame Stadium have also hosted it years past.
There are some logistical concerns (enough local hotel rooms, the stadium being functional in the winter after being shut down following football season), but the image of 110,000 Penguins and Flyers fans making a trek to the middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania to argue it out with one another is definitely appealing.
Los Angeles Coliseum (Los Angeles)
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Let's stick with the college football venues for a second and look at the Los Angeles Coliseum.
It's another of the classic venues in North American sports and has hosted everything from college football, to the NFL, to the World Series, to the Olympics and even a NASCAR race.
So why not an NHL game?
Just as you would have with Pittsburgh and Philadelphia at Beaver Stadium, you have a natural rivalry that could feature two regional teams—the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks—and it would also give some West Coast fans an opportunity to experience outdoor hockey.
Sure it would be 75 degrees and sunny, but the NHL has the technology to make that work and has played outdoor games in California before.
The initial idea here would have been the Rose Bowl, but that venue is usually booked for a significant football game on New Year's Day and they probably are not willing to reschedule that.
Nor would the NHL be willing to move the Winter Classic off New Years' Day. So the Coliseum it is.
More Non-Stadium Locations
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You could include Caesars Palace under this umbrella, but we separated that one because the NHL has actually used it as a venue in the past and might be willing to do so again in the future.
These, on the other hand, are more pipe dreams.
The inspiration behind them is when the NHL played a couple of games at Lake Tahoe on temporary rinks during the 2020-21 COVID-shortened season. Hockey fans have made suggestions in the past for places like the Washington Mall in Washington D.C., Central Park in New York City or the Rideau Canal in Ottawa.
While those are fun ideas and would be absolutely sensational settings, the NHL has not really shown any interest in pursuing those.
Mostly because the NHL is a gate-driven league, and even with temporary stands it would not sell enough tickets to justify it.
Lake Tahoe worked so brilliantly because there were no fans anywhere and the league had a rare, unique opportunity. Now the bottom line is selling tickets. As many tickets as possible. But we can still dream.
Ohio Stadium (Columbus, Ohio)
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We have thrown a bunch of dream ideas out there into the universe, so we might as well go with a realistic option that might legitimately happen.
So say hello to Ohio Stadium, the Horseshoe, in Columbus, Ohio.
The NHL has reportedly been looking into the possibility of hosting the Winter Classic here, per the Columbus Dispatch, and having the Columbus Blue Jackets be the host team.
The Blue Jackets might not be a national draw, but they have an underrated, fiercely loyal fanbase that has stuck around through a lot of bad hockey during its existence. They deserve a huge event like this, and even though the Blue Jackets are not where they want to be in the standings, they do have one of the league's rising stars in Adam Fantilli.
Give them a matchup with a team like Detroit or Pittsburgh that is a natural, geographic rival and in proximity and it would be a packed house in another iconic college football venue.
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