Outside N.H.L. hockey will make its launching in New Jersey next year when MetLife Arena in East Rutherford will host a four-team doubleheader of sorts in the league’s so-called Arena Series.
The Devils will play the Philadelphia Flyers on the night of Saturday, Feb. 17, and the Islanders will play the Rangers on the exact same ice the following day, the N.H.L. revealed on Saturday.
The league stated it anticipates more than 75,000 viewers per video game, and to continue its streak of 37 successive sellouts for routine season outside video games, which started in their contemporary kind in 2003.
” It’s a huge N.F.L. arena and it’s our objective to bring it to life in such a way that, honestly, we have not seen that much,” stated Steve Mayer, the N.H.L.’s primary content officer. “We are going to get extremely innovative and highlight the location.”
Mayer and Dean Matsuzaki, the league’s executive vice president for occasions, stated they had actually long intended to stage an outside video game at MetLife Arena. However they stated the logistics there are more complex than at lots of other arenas since it is the house of 2 N.F.L. groups, the Giants and the Jets, and there is less time to access the centers for preparation. However they kept in mind that the size of the place makes it possible to accommodate 4 groups, with arranged practice time and leisure ice time with their households, for all 4 groups.
The groups will be arranged off on the following Monday in case bad weather condition over the weekend forces either or both video games to be delayed. The precise seating capability will depend upon building of the lower seating location that is arranged to happen in preparation for the 2026 FIFA males’s World Cup.
In 2014, the Rangers played the Devils and the Islanders, 3 days apart, at Yankee Arena. Each video game drew about 50,000 fans. The biggest routine season outside N.H.L. video game was held at Michigan Arena in 2014 when a revealed crowd of 105,491 fans viewed the Detroit Red Wings play the Toronto Maple Leafs. The last outside video game kept in the New york city location was the Winter season Classic on a freezing New Year’s Day in 2018 in between the Rangers and the Buffalo Sabres at Citi Field, when 41,000 fans endured temperature levels that began at 7 degrees Fahrenheit in the early morning and peaked at 25.
Mayer stated organizers wish to boost next year’s occasion with extra home entertainment, youth hockey video games and music. Asked if they would look for New Jersey locals, like Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen to carry out, Mayer asked a press reporter if he had Springsteen’s telephone number, including with a laugh, “We want to speak to him right away.”