Detroit Red Wings left wing Henrik Zetterberg (40) tries to get to the net of Toronto Maple Leafs goalie Jonathan Bernier (45) while defended by defenseman Jake Gardiner (51) in the third period during the 2014 Winter Classic hockey game at Michigan Stadium Jan 1, 2014. [Photo/Agencies]

KEEPING IT SPECIAL

The biggest challenge facing the NHL going forward is what to do for an encore while maintaining the uniqueness that has been part of its tremendous success.

Once coy about whether there would even be regular outdoor game, the league is no longer shy about its plans, having already confirmed next year's Classic for Washington.

"They've been fun and successful and for the NHL to inject some fun into the sport and take it to a wider group of fans is almost priceless," Robert Boland, chair of sports management at New York University's Tisch Center told Reuters. "To some degree the Winter Classic games are ways to move fans from the more casual to more avid.

"The more you hold the less significant these events are and there is always a fine line that has to be walked.

"The NHL does have to make sure that these events have an exclusivity about them."

With the staging of each outdoor game the NHL has raised the bar.

The first was played in 2008 in Buffalo in a Christmas card setting with the Pittsburgh Penguins' Sidney Crosby netting the overtime winner as a steady snow fell, covering the soldout crowd at Ralph Wilson Stadium with a white frosting.

The next two editions melded baseball and hockey tradition with the NHL staging the extravaganza in two of America's most iconic sporting shrines, Chicago's Wrigley Field and Boston's Fenway Park.

The NHL's two biggest names, Crosby and the Washington Capitals' Alexander Ovechkin, faced off in 2011 while the New York Rangers and Philadelphia Flyers took their rivalry outdoors in 2012.

NHL chief operating officer John Collins, the mastermind and driving force behind the outdoor explosion, made it clear the Winter Classic is now a league fixture but was non-committal on the number of outdoor games that would be played each season in the future.

"I suspect the fact that this is all happening in the Olympic year is some reasoning behind the strategy that they are employing," said Swangard. "I would be concerned if the six-pack model would be the every-year reality of a game that I think carries some uniqueness by its scarcity.

"The core fan base does need to expand, it is becoming increasingly competitive in the market place in a lot of NHL cities and these non-traditional ways that you can expose someone to the sport is a key part of the acquisition strategy.