TheÂ Winter Classic hockey gameÂ at Michigan Stadium, with an anticipated crowd of about 110,000, will be played on Wednesday.  ANN ARBOR, Mich. â The N.H.L.'s schedule of six outdoor games, its most ever, will begin Wednesday with the Winter Classic before an anticipated crowd of about 110,000 at Michigan Stadium. That game and three others are sold out or nearly sold out.  But two other outdoor games are about 80 percent sold, according to the N.H.L.: the Los Angeles Kings-Anaheim Ducks game at Dodger Stadium on Jan. 25 and the Rangers-Islanders game at Yankee Stadium on Jan. 29.  The game between the Rangers and the Devils on Jan. 26 at Yankee Stadium, the first N.H.L. game to be played there, sold out three weeks ago. But many of the higher-priced tickets remain for the Rangers-Islanders game three days later, on a Wednesday night rather than a Sunday afternoon. That game is also generating a relatively low response on the ticket resale market.  The N.H.L.'s schedule of six outdoor games is a big increase over the one or two the league had staged in recent years. None were held last season, when an ownersâ lockout forced the cancellation of about half the schedule. The stadium series was created partly to make up for the lost revenue from the lockout.  According to Ticketmaster, the leagueâs ticket dealer, two outdoor games were sold out as of Monday morning: the Rangers-Devils game at Yankee Stadium and the Blackhawks-Penguins game on March 1 at Soldier Field in Chicago.  A single ticket remained for Wednesdayâs Winter Classic between the Detroit Red Wings and the Toronto Maple Leafs, according to Ticketmaster: Section 312, Row 5, Seat 4. That game is expected to set a world record for hockey attendance.  A few scattered seats remained for the Heritage Classic between the Vancouver Canucks and the Ottawa Senators on March 2. That game will be played in Vancouver at B.C. Place.  But last week the N.H.L. cut prices for some tickets to the Kings-Ducks game, the first N.H.L. regular-season game played outdoors at a warm-weather site. A Ticketmaster sales agent said Monday morning that âa lot of seatsâ remained for the Kings-Ducks game at all prices, which range from $49 to $279.  The agent said plenty of higher-priced tickets remained for Rangers-Islanders at Yankee Stadium. Seats were available for $238, $288 and $308, but tickets at prices from $79 to $198 were sold out, as were the highest-priced tickets at $349.  According to one key measure, the volume of tickets available on the resale market, the Rangers-Islanders game is generating the lowest demand among the six outdoor games.  Some 24,000 listings for the game were posted on ticket resale websites, according to TiqIQ.com, a site that aggregates major reseller marketplaces like StubHub, TicketsNow, eBay and others.  That figure stands in sharp contrast to the 1,400 to 9,800 ticket listings TiqIQ found for the other five N.H.L. stadium games.  Jesse Lawrence, TiqIQâs chief executive officer, said the 24,000 listings for the Rangers-Islanders game translated to roughly 15,000 actual tickets available on the resale market.  He said the average resale price for a Rangers-Islanders ticket at Yankee Stadium, $255, was significantly lower than that for a Rangers-Devils stadium ticket, $327. Lawrence also said that the average price for Rangers-Islanders stadium tickets on the secondary market had dropped by about 5 percent in the last week, another indicator of relatively light demand. Rangers-Devils prices have held steady.  âOne game at Yankee Stadium, no-brainer â high demand, high price,â Lawrence said. âTwo games, a little bit different. But this is the first time the N.H.L. has done so many outdoor games. Theyâll measure demand, see what it looks like in more markets, and Iâm sure next year theyâll apply what theyâve learned.â  Even if the Rangers-Islanders and Kings-Ducks games do not sell out, the N.H.L. will still reap benefits in terms of publicity and increased visibility in the two biggest media markets, New York and Los Angeles.  The Yankee Stadium games will be sharing the spotlight, though, with the Super Bowl, which will be held Feb. 2 in East Rutherford, N.J.
Four of the outdoor games are sold out or nearly so, but a game in Los Angeles and one of the Yankee Stadium games in late January have generated less interest.