MINNEAPOLIS -- Outdoor baseball, meet outdoor hockey.

The home of Minnesota Twins baseball will become the center of the hockey universe on Jan. 1, 2022, when the annual NHL Winter Classic comes to Target Field for a matchup between the Minnesota Wild and St. Louis Blues, the NHL announced on Monday.

The matchup had originally been scheduled for Jan. 1, 2021, but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Minnesota Wild president Matt Majka indicated that his understanding was the event was never in danger of moving to another location as a result of the delay.

"We are just really happy to be back in this place after all that we've all been through, and I cannot begin to diminish the difficulty that so many of us have experienced through the past year with the pandemic, and I feel like there's reason for optimism that we are moving forward, and this is, I think, another indication of that," Majka said.

Ticketing and broadcast information will come at a later time. Majka said the Twins and Wild anticipate being able to welcome a full-capacity crowd of around 39,000 fans to Target Field for the NHL tradition that began in 2008, which will feature the Wild for the first time in franchise history.

"This is an exciting day for everybody associated with the Minnesota Twins organization," Twins president and CEO Dave St. Peter said. "We've obviously enjoyed a special relationship with all of our professional sports franchises in our town. ... [Majka] and I have had a lot of conversations over the years with the view that perhaps Target Field, the capital of Twins Territory, maybe for one day, could be the capital of the State of Hockey."

St. Peter said the Twins have now been preparing Target Field for the event for the better part of two years, with the one-year delay to the event helping the Twins add elements of winterization and heating to their facility in preparation for the game in the midst of the Minnesota winter.

Target Field will become the seventh MLB stadium to host the Winter Classic, joining Wrigley Field (2009), Fenway Park (2010), Citizens Bank Park (2012), Nationals Park (2015), Busch Stadium (2017) and Citi Field (2018).

The Twins' home park has also played host to other notable events of greater sporting interest over the years, including the 2014 MLB All-Star Game, an international soccer match in 2016 between Minnesota United FC and Club León of Mexico, and a pair of NCAA college football games in 2017 and '19.

Amid all of the turmoil of the pandemic and civil unrest in the Twin Cities area over the last year-plus, the Twins hope their part in hosting this event will continue to encourage the development of the Downtown Minneapolis economy, which also saw recent boosts from the 2018 Super Bowl and 2019 NCAA Men's Final Four.

"We've had a great run of showcase events here in the Twin Cities, and this is the next big one," St. Peter said. "I can't tell you how important that is for the Twin Cities, based on everything we've been through on so many different fronts for the past year-plus. It will be a great day for the city of Minneapolis, for the Twin Cities in general, and the state of Minnesota, to put on another great show."

For more information about the game, to receive alerts when ticket information becomes available and to enter for a chance to win tickets to the 2022 NHL Winter Classic, please visit wild.com/winterclassic. As further details are announced regarding the 2022 NHL Winter Classic, information will also be available at twinsbaseball.com/winterclassic. More information regarding Target Field follows.