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Date | January 1, 2014 | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Venue | Michigan Stadium | |||||||||||||||||||||
City | Ann Arbor, Michigan | |||||||||||||||||||||
Attendance | 105,491 | |||||||||||||||||||||
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The 2014 NHL Winter Classic was an outdoor ice hockey game played in the National Hockey League (NHL) on January 1, 2014, at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, Michigan.[1] The sixth edition of the Winter Classic, it matched the Toronto Maple Leafs against the Detroit Red Wings; the Maple Leafs defeated the Red Wings, 3–2, in a shootout to move past the Red Wings in the Atlantic Division.[2][3] The game was televised nationally in Canada on CBC and nationally in the United States on NBC. The game set an NHL attendance record of 105,491, surpassing the previous record set during the 2008 NHL Winter Classic.[4]
The game was originally planned to be played on January 1, 2013, as the 2013 NHL Winter Classic, but was postponed until the following year due to the 2012–13 NHL lockout. The 2014 Winter Classic was one of six outdoor games held during the 2013–14 NHL season, which included the new 2014 NHL Stadium Series of four games and the 2014 Heritage Classic. These six games served as the NHL's premiere showcase games for the season as there was no All Star Game due to the 2014 Winter Olympics.
The event was the first Winter Classic to be held at a stadium dedicated solely to college football. It was also the first whose festivities were split between two locations, as the NHL Alumni Showdown and other side events were held on a second rink constructed at Comerica Park in downtown Detroit.