The Dallas Stars hosted the NHL’s Winter Classic in 2020. Now the team is getting the chance to host a similar event — and on an even bigger stage.
ARLINGTON, Texas — Almost six years after the Dallas Stars hosted the NHL’s 2020 Winter Classic at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, the sequel to that highly successful — and still often-discussed — affair has finally been announced.
On February 20, 2027, the Stars will host a matchup at AT&T Stadium in Arlington — home to the Dallas Cowboys — as part of the NHL’s Stadium Series.
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and Jerry Jones announced the event in a joint interview with ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt on Monday, just ahead of the Cowboys’ Monday Night Football matchup at the stadium against the Arizona Cardinals.
“We couldn’t be more thrilled to be having a game here, hosted by the Dallas Stars, in this amazing, amazing stadium,” Bettman said.
Added Jones: “It’s going to be a great deal to have that hockey match set up right out here on this stadium, right where the Cowboys play.”
Whereas the Winter Classic has, since 2008, annually found the NHL hosting two teams facing off in an outdoor stadium setting on New Year’s Day, its more irregularly scheduled Stadium Series has, since 2014, found the league hosting games in similar nontraditional outdoor hockey settings — sometimes multiple times a year, even.
By all accounts, the last time the NHL hosted a stadium hockey game in North Texas, it was a hit. At the time, the 85,630 fans who attended the 2020 Winter Classic at the Cotton Bowl represented the second-highest attendance in history for an NHL game; all these years later, that game, which the Stars won 4-2 over the Nashville Predators, remains the third-highest crowd that any NHL team has ever played in front of.
Monday’s announcement is sure to be received as pleasant among Stars fans, but it’s not exactly a surprise. Flames of another game along the lines of the 2020 Winter Classic’s magnitude returning to Dallas-Fort Worth began to be stoked during the Stars’ playoff run last season.
First, before the Stars’ first-round matchup with the Colorado Avalanche, team owner Tom Gaglardi told a small group of media members that he would “love to see an outdoor game” in Dallas and then further backed that sentiment up by saying, “and that’s gonna happen. I believe it’ll happen.”
Later, during the Stars’ third straight Western Conference Final appearance, Bettman hosted a press conference in Dallas ahead of Game 5 in that series, and answered a question about Gaglardi’s comments by saying, “No announcement tonight, but it’s something we’re focused on.”
Then, that same evening, Bettman joined the Stars radio booth during that game’s first intermission and told the team’s studio hosts, when asked about another stadium game, that Dallas has “proven they can handle marquee events” and only smiled when asked if he envisioned such an event hosting more than the 85,000-plus fans the Winter Classic claimed.
Since then, speculation has run rampant that a stadium-hosted hockey game could soon be announced for AT&T Stadium. Jerry Jones’ crown jewel in Arlington has a stated capacity of 80,000, although its seating arrangements can also be expanded to hold as many as 105,000 people. The state max capacity of the Cotton Bowl, meanwhile, is 92,100.
“We’re going to beat that number,” Bettman said when asked about the league’s Cotton Bowl event and if the AT&T Stadium deal might outdraw it. “Absolutely.”
Stars players Tyler Seguin, Wyatt Johnston, Jamie Benn and Jason Robertson were in attendance on the AT&T Stadium field at the time of Bettman and Jones’ ESPN announcement. Stars CEO Brad Alberts, who teased the announcement himself with one of his trademark “👀” X posts earlier in the day, was also present.
Perhaps worth additionally noting: Bettman, maybe in a slip of the tongue, referred to the Stadium Series game at AT&T Stadium as an “outdoor” event. AT&T Stadium indeed boasts a roof that could be opened and allow for the elements to play a role in the game, should the parties involved so choose. But that, as Cowboys fans know, is something of a rarity at the venue known as Jerry World.
Also decreasing the likelihood of that happening? A rendering released by the NHL to showcase what a hockey setup at the football arena might look like showed the stadium’s roof closed:
Still, who knows what could happen almost 16 months from now? That’s a long ways away, meaning fans have a long wait ahead of them before this game comes. If nothing else, that’s something the Cowboys ownership can apparently relate to: In a statement, Bettman said that Jones has been lobbying the NHL to host a game at AT&T Stadium since the venue opened in 2009.
“Hosting the NHL Stadium Series with the Dallas Stars is another great example of the vision we’ve always had for what AT&T Stadium could be beyond football,” Jones said in a statement of his own.
The game, which will be broadcast on ABC, will have its opponent announced at later date, the league said.
Details regarding tickets to the game have not yet been made publicly available, but fans can sign up at this link for information on tickets and the game as they come.
