NHL Winter Classic

The NHL Winter Classic is an annual event held by the National Hockey League (NHL) on or around New Year's Day in which a regular-season ice hockey game is played outdoors, generally in a football or baseball stadium, in an area with a resident NHL team. The first Winter Classic was held in 2008 at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park, New York, between the Buffalo Sabres and Pittsburgh Penguins. A total of eight have been held, the most recent one taking place in 2016 between the Montreal Canadiens and the Boston Bruins.

After the success of the 2003 Heritage Classic, the NHL's first regular season outdoor game, the league inaugurated the Winter Classic in 2008. It eventually caught on as an annual tradition for the league, suspending only in 2013 due to 2012–13 NHL lockout. The 2014 game between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Detroit Red Wings set a new NHL attendance record of 105,491. The Winter Classic has been contested only in the United States, while the Heritage Classic has been held exclusively in Canada. The Winter Classic featured only American teams for its first five games, until the Leafs' appearance in 2014.

2016 NHL Winter Classic

The 2016 NHL Winter Classic (officially the 2016 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic) was a regular season outdoor National Hockey League (NHL) game, that was held on January 1, 2016. The game, the eighth Winter Classic, saw the Montreal Canadiens defeat the Boston Bruins, 5–1, at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, a significant event in one of the NHL's best-known rivalries. A Bruins and Canadiens alumni game was also played on December 31, 2015. The Boston Pride women's professional hockey team played before the alumni game against Les Canadiennes of the Canadian Women's Hockey League to a 1–1 tie in the first ever Women's Winter Classic (officially the Outdoor Women's Classic presented by Scotiabank).

Teams

The Bruins made their second appearance in the Winter Classic, as they played against the Philadelphia Flyers in the 2010 NHL Winter Classic held in Boston's Fenway Park; Massachusetts became the first market to serve as repeat host of the Winter Classic. Early reports dating back to December 2014 by TSN's Bob McKenzie indicated that Boston was the league's first choice in hosting the game.

Boston Bruins

The Boston Bruins are a professional ice hockey team based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Bruins compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member club of the league's Eastern Conference Atlantic Division. The team has been in existence since 1924, and is the league's third-oldest team and is the oldest in the United States. It is also an Original Six franchise, along with the Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, Montreal Canadiens, New York Rangers and Toronto Maple Leafs. The Bruins have won six Stanley Cup championships, tied for fourth most of all-time with the Blackhawks and tied second-most of any American NHL team also with the Blackhawks (behind the Red Wings, who have 11). Their home arena is the TD Garden, where they have played since 1995. The Bruins began play in the NHL on December 1, 1924. The first facility to host them was what was formerly known as the Boston Arena (today's Matthews Arena) — the world's oldest (built 1909–10) indoor ice hockey facility still in use for the sport at any level of competition — and following the Bruins' departure from the Boston Arena, the team played its home games at the Boston Garden for 67 seasons, beginning in 1928 and concluding in 1995.

Montreal Canadiens

The Montreal Canadiens (French: Les Canadiens de Montréal) are a Canadian professional ice hockey team based in Montreal, Quebec, that competes in the National Hockey League (NHL). They are members of the league's Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference.

The club's official name is le Club de hockey Canadien. The team is frequently referred to in English and French as the Habs. French nicknames for the team include Les Canadiens (or Le Canadien), Le Bleu-Blanc-Rouge, La Sainte-Flanelle,Le Tricolore, Les Glorieux (or Nos Glorieux), Les Habitants, Le CH and Le Grand Club.

Founded in 1909, the Canadiens are the longest continuously operating professional ice hockey team worldwide, and the only existing NHL club to predate the founding of the NHL. One of the oldest North American professional sports franchises, the Canadiens' history predates that of every other Canadian franchise outside of football as well as every American franchise outside of baseball and the National Football League's Arizona Cardinals. The franchise is one of the "Original Six" teams, a description used for the teams that made up the NHL from 1942 until the 1967 expansion. The team's championship season in 1992–93 was the last time a Canadian team won the Stanley Cup.

Winter

Winter is the coldest season of the year in polar and temperate climates, between autumn and spring. Winter is caused by the axis of the Earth in that hemisphere being oriented away from the Sun. Different cultures define different dates as the start of winter, and some use a definition based on weather. When it is winter in the Northern Hemisphere, it is summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and vice versa. In many regions, winter is associated with snow and freezing temperatures. The moment of winter solstice is when the sun's elevation with respect to the North or South Pole is at its most negative value (that is, the sun is at its farthest below the horizon as measured from the pole), meaning this day will have the shortest day and the longest night. The earliest sunset and latest sunrise dates outside the polar regions differ from the date of the winter solstice, however, and these depend on latitude, due to the variation in the solar day throughout the year caused by the Earth's elliptical orbit (see earliest and latest sunrise and sunset).