Attendance records

The Cold War
The largest hockey attendance in history was on October 6, 2001, for a game commonly known as the Cold War. Two college hockey rivals, University of Michigan and Michigan State University, opened their season with a game in Michigan State's outdoor football arena, Spartan Stadium. A $500,000 sheet of ice was used, and the temperature was −1 °C(30 °F). The game drew a record breaking 74,554 spectators, smashing the previous number of 55,000 attendance during the Sweden vs. Soviet Union game during the world championship in Moscow.

The Heritage Classic
The Heritage Classic was an outdoor ice hockey game played on November 22, 2003 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada between the Edmonton Oilers and the Montreal Canadiens. It set the record for most viewers of a single NHL game with 2.747 million nationwide.

The Winter Classic
The largest crowd to ever watch an NHL game was during the Winter Classic when 71,000 people watched the Pittsburgh Penguins battle the Buffalo Sabres. The game was held at Ralph Wilson Stadium, which is the Buffalo Bills home stadium in Buffalo, United States, on January 1, 2008. This was the first NHL game held outside in the United States. The Penguins scored the first goal within the first 20 seconds of the game. The Sabres then scored in the 2nd period to tie the game. The game went into overtime and the Penguins ended up winning during a shot out.
Previously, this record was held by the Heritage Classic, an outdoor NHL game taking place in Commonwealth Stadium of Edmonton, Alberta, on November 22, 2003. The event involved a regular-season matchup between the Edmonton Oilers and Montreal Canadiens. An old-timers game, referred to as the MegaStars game, was played prior to the regular-season match, and featured an alumni of Oilers playing against a squad of former Canadiens. This is the only NHL alumni game in which Wayne Gretzky has played since retiring, and he maintains it will be the last.