Ohio State to Meet Michigan in Outdoor Hockey Game CLEVELAND - Even in snowy conditions, the helmets - Ohio State's gray with a scarlet stripe, and Michigan's blue with maize wings - will be recognizable. The Game, as matchups between these universities are known, will be played not on a football field but on an ice rink built over a baseball diamond. Ohio State will host Michigan on Sunday in the Frozen Diamond Faceoff, the centerpiece of the Cleveland Indians" second annual winter event called Snow Days. It will be the first outdoor college hockey game in Ohio, and the teams will carry the traditions started by their football teams in 1897. "Regardless of what you bring to it when you get here, you understand very quickly that you're part of a great tradition, part of something much bigger than yourself," said Lloyd Carr, Michigan's football coach for 13 seasons beginning in 1995. Ohio State and Michigan's heated rivalry reached a boiling point in 1969, when Bo Schembechler, in his first season at Michigan, defeated the Buckeyes under Woody Hayes, his former coach at Miami of Ohio and his boss at Ohio State. The Wolverines" 24-12 victory against the Buckeyes, the top-ranked defending national champions, touched off the Ten-Year War, during which Schembechler and Hayes split 10 Big Ten Conference titles. "Spring practice, we would always gear toward Michigan," said Archie Griffin, an Ohio State running back from 1972 to 1975, who never lost to Michigan. So that was the mark, to beat Michigan. That's what you came to Ohio State for if you were a student-athlete. I don't care what sport is was - that's what you wanted to do. In hockey, Michigan, with 9 national championships and a record 21 straight N.C.A.A. tournament appearances, has set the standard since the sport earned varsity status in 1922. Ohio State has had six tournament berths since its first season of varsity hockey, 1963-64, including a Frozen Four trip in 1997-98. "Michigan is always a top team in the league, and for Ohio State, it is important to compete hard against them and see where you match up," said R. J. Umberger, a Columbus Blue Jackets forward who played for the Buckeyes from 2000 to 2003. When I was there, they were a bitter rival and a hard team to play against. Eighty former Michigan players have appeared in at least one N.H.L. game, with 19 this season, including the Rangers" Carl Hagelin and Calgary's Mike Cammalleri. Twenty-two Ohio State players have appeared in at least one N.H.L. game, with eight this season, including Umberger and Vancouver's Ryan Kesler. Ohio State trails the series with Michigan, 33-69-11, but this season the Buckeyes (14-5-3) are ranked second in the U.S. College Hockey Online poll. Although they posted a two-game sweep against the No. 15 Wolverines (13-8-4) at Michigan, the Buckeyes lost Friday in Columbus, 4-0. The second-year coach Mark Osiecki, a former assistant to Mike Eaves at Wisconsin and to Dean Blais at North Dakota, has begun to build Ohio State into a top program like the one Red Berenson has presided over for 28 seasons at Michigan. "I think we have to take, as I've always used with our team, a lot of baby steps," Osiecki said. I think that the staffs that have been here in the past have done an outstanding job building and laying the foundation. And hopefully we can just carry that on. Osiecki, like Ohio State coaches before him, knows the importance placed on beating the Wolverines. Hayes's disdain for Michigan was so great that he refused to even utter its name, referring to it as That School Up North. The Ohio State-Michigan rivalry on ice is sure to get a boost in the 2013-14 season, when the teams begin play in the six-team Big Ten Hockey Conference. "I think just having the name Big Ten certainly is going to help the traditions and the heightened awareness with our fans," said Osiecki, a defenseman who played for Wisconsin and in 93 games in the N.H.L. The outdoor game at Progressive Field is a start. Osiecki coached in two outdoor games at Wisconsin, victories against Ohio State (2006) and Michigan (2010). "I think the one thing that's so fun for the players to experience is the tailgating and the football feel of a game like that," Osiecki said of the Frozen Tundra Classic at Lambeau Field in 2006. I remember on the bus going to the game, going through the parking lot and the buzz was just like a Packers Sunday. In 2001, Michigan played Michigan State in the so-called Cold War, which popularized outdoor games. Last season, Michigan took on Michigan State in the Big House, and the crowd of 113,411 set a hockey attendance world record. Hagelin, who scored two goals in that game, said the experience of playing outdoors is "something you'll remember for the rest of your life." Hagelin also played in the Rangers" 3-2 victory over the Flyers in the Winter Classic at Philadelphia on Jan. 2. Berenson said it was a treat to be coaching his fourth outdoor game. "It is weird because hockey was really started outdoors, and let's face it, it was natural ice that most of us played on," said Berenson, a former Michigan captain who played 17 seasons in the N.H.L. "And then it was a treat to play indoors, and now it's gotten to be the other way around." Hagelin, who grew up in Sweden, knew little about football when he got to Michigan. "I think I started realizing it just watching some games on TV and how all the Michigan fans were happy when Ohio State lost," he said. And then obviously when Ohio State came in for games, and everyone was just talking trash to Ohio State and how much they hated them. Carr, whose football teams had a 6-7 record against Ohio State, said his favorite rivalry moments came after victories, when the captains would speak and the team would sing "The Victors." On Sunday, in front of an expected crowd of 30,000, Michigan and Ohio State will be trying to create memories of their own.