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The 2016 NHL Winter Classic (officially the 2016 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic) was a regular season outdoor National Hockey League (NHL) game, that was held on January 1, 2016. The game, the eighth Winter Classic, saw the Montreal Canadiens defeat the Boston Bruins, 5–1, at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, a significant event in one of the NHL's best-known rivalries. A Bruins and Canadiens alumni game was also played on December 31, 2015. The Boston Pride women's professional hockey team played before the alumni game against Les Canadiennes of the Canadian Women's Hockey League to a 1–1 tie in the first ever 2016 Outdoor Women's Classic (officially the Outdoor Women's Classic presented by Scotiabank).
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Teams
The Bruins made their second appearance in the Winter Classic, as they played against the Philadelphia Flyers in the 2010 NHL Winter Classic held in Boston's Fenway Park; Massachusetts became the first market to serve as repeat host of the Winter Classic. Early reports dating back to December 2014 by TSN's Bob McKenzie indicated that Boston was the league's first choice in hosting the game.
To accommodate the event, Gillette Stadium's primary tenant, the New England Patriots, played the last two games of their 2015 season on the road. The Bruins introduced a new third jersey for the game and it featured the team's original logo, as virtually a re-creation of their inaugural 1924–25 NHL season brown/gold sweaters worn while playing their home games in Matthews Arena, which opened in 1910, now on the campus of Northeastern University. (Matthews also was the first arena for the Boston Celtics and what is now the Carolina Hurricanes.)
This was the first Winter Classic appearance and third outdoor game for the Canadiens; the team previously played 2003 NHL Heritage Classic against the hosting Edmonton Oilers and the 2011 NHL Heritage Classic against the hosting Calgary Flames. The team also played in a new third jersey and used a logo from the 1920s.
The two teams are long-time rivals. As of the end of the 2014–15 NHL season, the two teams have played each other 729 times during the regular season, 177 times during the playoffs, including nine game sevens. The two teams also held a special alumni game between the two teams, on December 31 at Gillette Stadium.
Game summary
In the most lopsided score in the Winter Classic, four Montreal players combined to score five goals en route to a 5–1 victory against Boston. In his first game since suffering a hand injury on November 22, Canadiens forward Brendan Gallagher recorded a goal and an assist. Goalie Mike Condon made 27 saves for Montreal. Matt Beleskey scored the Bruins' only goal.
Number in parenthesis represents the player's total in goals or assists to that point of the seasonAlumni Game
In the Alumni Game on New Year's Eve, the Bruins defeated the Canadiens 5-4 in a shootout. The Canadiens alumni included Guy Carbonneau, Larry Robinson and Jose Theodore with the coaches including Guy Lafleur and Jacques Demers, while the Bruins alumni included Cam Neely, Terry O'Reilly, Mark Recchi and Ray Bourque with the coaches including Derek Sanderson, Lyndon Byers, Mike Milbury and Don "Grapes" Cherry.
Television
The game was televised in the United States on NBC, with commentators Mike Emrick, Eddie Olczyk, and Pierre McGuire.
In Canada, it was the second consecutive Winter Classic to be televised under the Rogers Media contract, but for the first time the English-language broadcast was shown on Sportsnet instead of on CBC Television and the Hockey Night in Canada banner. Commentary was provided by Jim Hughson, Craig Simpson, and Glenn Healy. For the second consecutive time, the game was broadcast in French on TVA Sports (with commentators Félix Séguin and Patrick Lalime, and reporter Renaud Lavoie) as part of TVA's sub-licensing agreement with Rogers.
Television ratings
The 2016 NHL Winter Classic had the lowest ratings of any Winter Classic in the United States to date, with an average of less than 3 million American viewers watching the game.