The Utah Mammoth will host the Colorado Avalanche for the NHL's 2027 Winter Classic (Photo: KSL Sports).
(Photo: KSL Sports)
SALT LAKE CITY – Ahead of the first ever home playoff game in franchise history, the Utah Mammoth announced on Friday that they will host the 2027 Winter Classic on December 31, 2026, at Rice Eccles Stadium.
BREAKING: The Utah Mammoth have announced that the Winter Classic will be held on New Years Eve.#TusksUp #GoAvsGo
— Cole Bagley (@BagleyKSLsports) April 25, 2026
Scheduled for New Years Eve, the Utah Mammoth will host the 18th NHL Winter Classic at Rice Eccles Stadium.
Housing the league’s marquee outdoor game, Utah will welcome the Colorado Avalanche to Salt Lake City for a Central Division matchup.
The game will feature some of the NHL’s premier talent as Clayton Keller, Logan Cooley, and Dylan Guenther face off against Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, and Gabriel Landeskog.
Following the game, Delta Center will then host a concert that night to celebrate the New Year.
“We have a lot planned given the time of the game,” Ryan Smith said. “We’re going to parlay that into a pretty special concert that night so people can come and celebrate New Years with us.”
“You can expect a full weekend of programming and events.”
Since 2008, the National Hockey League has hosted a collection of outdoor games headlined by the annual Winter Classic.
Regularly hosted on New Year’s Day, two teams are selected by the NHL to participate in a marquee outdoor hockey game.
In the past, cities such as Buffalo, Philadelphia, Boston, Pittsburgh, Ann Arbor, and Seattle have hosted the extraordinary event.
In 2026, the NHL experimented with a different approach as the Florida Panthers hosted the New York Rangers at LoanDepot Park in Miami, Florida.
In 2014, the NHL also introduced the Stadium Series to add even more annual outdoor games to the league’s schedule.
However, these differ from the Winter Classic as they serve as more of a supporting event to reach additional markets, as opposed to the Winter Classic, which is the primary outdoor game for the calendar year.
The Winter Classic will now return to a true winter setting as Salt Lake City prepares to welcome the prestigious event on New Years Eve.
The Utah Mammoth will face the Vegas Golden Knights in game three of the Stanley Cup Playoffs on Friday at 7:30 p.m. MDT.
The game will be available on TBS, HBO Max and SEG+.
All Mammoth games will also be broadcast live on the KSL Sports Zone (97.5 FM/1280 AM).
