Target for the Next Winter Classic: 104,174 Even going into its sixth year, the N.H.L."s Winter Classic retains the capacity to delight and astonish, as evidenced by last week's reports that the game next Jan. 1 will be played at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor and will feature the Detroit Red Wings and the Toronto Maple Leafs. Although the reports are not official, an announcement that the Big House will host the big outdoor game is expected to come in early February. Jimmy Devellano, a vice president of the Red Wings and the Detroit Tigers, helped cement the impression last week. "We applied to put it in Comerica, but it's a league-driven event," Devellano told The Windsor Star, referring to Comerica Park, the Tigers" stadium, which will probably get the alumni game as a consolation. They're going after a world all-time attendance record. It's no surprise that's what the N.H.L. is trying to accomplish. The current hockey attendance record is the Guinness-certified 104,173 who watched Michigan beat Michigan State on Dec. 11, 2010. The crowd was originally announced at 113,411. The record for a professional game is 77,803, for Germany's upset of the United States in a 2010 world championship game at Veltins-Arena in Gelsenkirchen, home of the Bundesliga soccer team Schalke 04. What made that scene so remarkable was the sea of fans who were permitted to stand on the floor, surrounding the rink right up to the sideboards. The business of breaking those records is where the inclusion of the Leafs comes in. Fans with full or partial season tickets in Detroit and Toronto will get first chance at Winter Classic seats, but several thousand tickets might still be available. With great demand from both sides of the Michigan-Ontarioborder, they should be snapped up in short order. The Owner Pops Up The anomaly of the Madison Square Garden chairman James L. Dolan's visit to Coach John Tortorella's news conference Tuesday after the Rangers" 3-0 victory over Nashvillestill reverberates, and not just because of Dolan's impulsive comment that he thinks the Rangers are "getting pretty close" to winning the Stanley Cup. Although Knicks fans know him all too well for often taking an active role in the basketball team's management decisions, Dolan is practically a cipher to Rangers fans. He is rarely seen and has said virtually nothing about the team for several years. Dolan grew up on Long Island a hockey fan, and he is known to be deferential to Glen Sather, the Rangers" longtime general manager, whom he referred to Tuesday as Mr. Sather. But as an owner, Dolan has a management style that is a far cry from the hands-on involvement of Ed Snider, who has been a continual presence in the Flyers" dressing room for 45 years. No coach could be pleased with that sort of Stanley Cup talk from his owner, especially three months before the playoffs. And Tortorella's dismissive response to Dolan's remark did not surprise the hockey commentator Bob McKenzie. The two worked together in the studio for TSN's hockey coverage in Canada. "Whenever he'd have a clip of a player who he thought was overstepping his bounds in terms of saying something, you could see he'd get all quirky, and he'd twitch and he'd be grinding his teeth," McKenzie said on TSN 990 radio in Montreal. "And off camera, he'd go, "That guy, that guy right there," he says, "he's got to just shut up and play." " "And I can guarantee you," McKenzie added, "his reaction would have been, "This Dolan guy, this owner guy, he's got to just shut up and just own." " From Peerless to Porous Even past the schedule's halfway point, the list of marquee goaltenders having miserable seasons is surprisingly long. It includes Cam Ward, darling of Carolina's 2006 Stanley Cup run and still considered a top young goalie. He had a .907 save percentage going into Saturday's game against the Islanders, good for only 33rd among the N.H.L."s 45 regular goalies. Jonas Hiller, slumping Anaheim's No. 1, came into the season with a .921 career save percentage; he was down to .903.Ryan Miller, two years ago an Olympic star hailed as the world's best goalie, was at .897 for the sputtering Sabres. The Devils" Martin Brodeur, holder of many career records and a surefire Hall of Famer, was at .895. Ilya Bryzgalov, the Flyers" $51 million free-agent signing, languished at .893. And Dwayne Roloson of Tampa Bay, last season's ageless wonder and playoff sensation, looks every one of his 42 years: his .880 save percentage was the worst in the league.