"It's not just a Winter Classic day. It's now a Winter Classic week.

More details about what the NHL plans for its Jan. 1 outdoor game between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Detroit Red Wings — perhaps the worst-kept secret in sports — are beginning to leak out.

There'll be two news conferences, one at 10:30 a.m. at Comerica Park, home of the Detroit Tigers, another at 1:30 p.m. at Michigan Stadium, a.k.a. the Big House, where the league hopes the big game will draw upwards of 100,000 people.

The league intends to draw on the population of Leaf Nation — the main reason a Canadian team has been invited to what has been an exclusively American event — to help reach its record crowd levels at the college football stadium."