By Marvi Sajid

NEW YORK (TIP): The NHL Bridgestone Winter Classic, is an annual event held by the national hockey league that takes place New Year`s Day, and features two NHL teams. The game is brought back outside to celebrate the origin of the game. This year the New York Rangers play host to their intrastate rivals the Buffalo Sabres at the home of the New York Mets- Citi Field.

The Buffalo Sabres were the first team ever to host a Winter Classic in the history of the league in 2008, where they played the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Sabres however, did lose the affair in a 2-1 shootout loss. The Sabres, are not the only ones familiar with playing in the Winter Classic as the New York Rangers also took center stage at the 2012 Winter Classic where they took a 3-2 win over their metropolitan division rivals and host the Philadelphia Flyers.

Thus far this season, the New York Rangers look to be the stronger of the two teams as they currently hold a 19-12-3 record this season sitting just outside of a wild card playoff position. The Buffalo Sabres on the other hand, are nearly dead last in the league with another disappointing season having won just 8 games leading up to the New Year.

The game is not the only thing viewers should look forward too during the event as Buffalo`s rock group the Goo Goo Dolls are set to perform during the first intermission of the game, along with the announcement of Team USA`s Olympic roster.

The Winter Classic is set to air New Year’s Day at 1pm ET on NBC straight from Citi Field.