NHL 100 Classic
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| Date | December 16, 2017 | |||||||||||||||
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| Arena | TD Place Stadium | |||||||||||||||
| City | Ottawa, Ontario | |||||||||||||||
The NHL 100 Classic (branded as the Scotiabank NHL 100 Classic) is an upcoming regular season outdoor National Hockey League (NHL) game that will be held on December 16, 2017. The game will feature the Ottawa Senators playing the Montreal Canadiens at TD Place Stadium in Ottawa. It is one of the scheduled outdoor regular season games in the 2017–18 NHL season. As part of the NHL's centennial, the game will be a re-match of one of the NHL's first two regular-season games, and also be part of local celebrations for Canada's sesquicentennial.
It will mark the first outdoor game hosted by Ottawa, and the second that Ottawa has participated in; they previously faced the Vancouver Canucks in the 2014 Heritage Classic. This will be Montreal's fourth time appearing in an outdoor game, all as the visitor.
The NHL 100 Classic was announced during a press conference on March 17, 2017. As part of the league's centennial celebrations, the game will honour the 100th anniversary of the first two games of the NHL's inaugural season, held on December 19, 1917: the original Ottawa Senators hosted the Montreal Canadiens, and the Montreal Wanderers played at home versus the Toronto Arenas. The game is also part of Ottawa's festivities for the 150th anniversary of Canada. According to NHL president Gary Bettman: "To launch our next 100 years, we believe it is only right to bring the Canadiens and the Senators back together."
Mayor of Ottawa Jim Watson remarked that he had spent a significant amount of time to convince the NHL to hold an outdoor game in Ottawa, noting that "at some point I think I could be accused of harassment — borderline harassment — for the calls that went back and forth between my office and the NHL and the Senators. But it all came together." At one point, the game was proposed to be played at a temporary venue on Parliament Hill, but the proposal was denied by the Department of Canadian Heritage due to logistical concerns.
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