BUFFALO, N.Y. \u2014 NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said there was a good chance the league in 2028 would celebrate the 20th anniversary of its annual Winter Classic in the place where the outdoor event first launched \u2014 Orchard Park, New York.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not making an announcement or committing to it, but we\u2019re kind of focused on whether or not we can do it around the 20th anniversary of the original Winter Classic,\u201d Bettman said while attending the Sabres’ season-opener in Buffalo on Thursday night. \u201cWe\u2019ve already had discussions about the possibility of an outdoor game at Highmark, and that\u2019s something that we think would be great.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bettman\u2019s mention of Highmark is in reference to the Buffalo Bills’ current NFL stadium, which will also be the name of the team’s new\u00a0$2.1 billion facility being built across the street\u00a0and set to open in July.<\/p>\n
And it was in the old facility, then called Ralph Wilson Stadium, where the first Winter Classic was held on Jan. 1, 2008, and immediately captured the NHL’s and its fans\u2019 imaginations. The combination of falling snow and a packed stadium of 71,217 fans created a snow-globe effect for an international TV audience.<\/p>\n
Even better, the NHL\u2019s then-rising star Sidney Crosby sealed the Pittsburgh Penguins’ 2-1 victory over Buffalo by scoring the decisive shootout goal.<\/p>\n
The NHL has since hosted 16 Winter Classics at various notable stadiums across the U.S. \u2014 including Chicago\u2019s Wrigley Field, Boston\u2019s Fenway Park and\u00a0Dallas’ Cotton Bowl\u00a0\u2014 in a game usually played on New Year\u2019s Day. The league has since added other outdoor games to its calendar,\u00a0in having 41 overall\u00a0since the first Winter Classic, with this year’s game\u00a0set for the Miami Marlins’ LoanDepot Park on Jan. 2.<\/p>\n
Bettman joked the NHL envisioned how the Winter Classic would be an instant success, before adding he was kidding about what began as a one-time proposal the Sabres and NBC pitched to the league.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re grateful that we did it here first,\u201d Bettman said. “And we are going to come back, I promise.\u201d<\/p>\n
Helping in the logistics is the Sabres and Bills both being owned by Terry Pegula.<\/p>\n
Highmark Stadium also served as home to an international hockey game between the United States and Canada in December 2017, when Buffalo hosted the world junior championships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUFFALO, N.Y. \u2014 NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said there was a good chance the league in 2028 would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-203625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}