The Utah Mammoth will host the NHL Winter Classic in their third season. They'll face Central Division rivals in the contest at Rice-Eccles Stadium.
The 2027 NHL Winter Classic will go down in Utah, the league announced Wednesday.
The Utah Mammoth get to host the NHL's marquee regular-season outdoor game in what will be their third season. They'll face their Central Division rivals, the Colorado Avalanche.
Next season's outdoor game will be Utah's first and the Avalanche's fourth after going 1-2-0 in their first three. Colorado's previous outdoor matchup was a 3-2 win over the Vegas Golden Knights at the 2021 NHL Outdoors at Lake Tahoe event, which was held without fans in the stands due to COVID-19, though spectators brought their boats to the edge of the lake to catch the action.
The on-campus football venue at the University of Utah, Rice-Eccles Stadium, will host the 18th NHL Winter Classic and 47th regular-season outdoor game in league history. The stadium features views of the nearby Wasatch Mountain Range of the Greater Rockies. It hosted the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake, and it's slated to do so again in the 2034 Winter Olympic Games.
Utah will be the 32nd NHL franchise to play in a regular-season outdoor game since 2003, when the Montreal Canadiens and Edmonton Oilers played in the Heritage Classic.
The Mammoth franchise was established in April 2024 and purchased the hockey assets of the Arizona Coyotes, which did not get to play an outdoor game.
At the time the Utah club was born, the Florida Panthers and Columbus Blue Jackets had not played outdoor games either. But the Panthers just played the 2026 Winter Classic on Jan. 2, losing 5-1 to the New York Rangers, while Columbus hosted a Stadium Series game on March 1, 2025, beating the Detroit Red Wings 5-3.
The Avalanche have led the NHL for most of this campaign, challenging the Boston Bruins' record for most points in a season that was set in 2022-23. They've gone 4-1-1 against Utah in the past two years, with one more meeting scheduled this regular season.
Utah, meanwhile, has a young core starring Clayton Keller, Logan Cooley, Dylan Guenther, JJ Peterka, Mikhail Sergachev and Sean Durzi. They're fourth in the Central Division, just two points back of a wild-card spot in the Western Conference.
The date and start time for the 2027 NHL Winter Classic has yet to be announced, but TNT will televise the game in the United States, while Sportsnet has the Canadian rights.
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