Rare game set to be staged in a strange new setting.
The Washington Capitals will play host to the National Hockey League’s annual New Year’s Day outdoor game in 2015, the league announced.
The game will be staged on January 1, 2015, against an opponent to be named later at a site yet to be revealed.
Baseball’s Washington Nationals have a ballpark only a few subway stops from the Capitals’ home arena and one of the minority shareholders in the NHL club’s ownership group is the owner of the Nationals.
But another possibility is the home stadium of American football’s Washington Redskins, which would offer more potential seats.
The Capitals played their only prior outdoor game in a gridiron venue at Pittsburgh in 2011 before 68,111 spectators.
The NHL has expanded its outdoor offerings this season, adding outdoor games at Yankee Stadium in New York and Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles to the lineup in January, which will open with Detroit and Toronto playing in a college football stadium that offers more than 100,000 seats — what will be an NHL record attendance.
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