Almost 110,000 people are expected to watch when Michigan plays Michigan State in Ann Arbor on Saturday, a crowd that will shatter the hockey attendance record by more than 30,000. The notion of a crowd that size, roaring in temperatures expected to be at the freezing mark, a seething well of fans reaching up and up into the overcast wintry sky, gives pause to Rick Comley, the Michigan State coach.

“The thought that you’re going to be right down there in the pit, with 100,000 people all around you  I don’t think you really can prepare for it,” he said Friday, a day before the Big Chill at the Big House, as the game at Michigan Stadium is being billed.

Comley was excited by the prospect of playing before the biggest hockey crowd ever. So was Red Berenson, the Michigan coach, who was there in 2001 for the first big outdoor game in the United States, the so-called Cold War between Michigan State and Michigan at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing, attended by 74,000.

“We had Gordie Howe to drop the initial puck for the ceremonial face-off,” Berenson said, “and he said to me, ‘I thought I’d seen everything in hockey  this just blows it away.’ And I felt the same way. And now here we are nine years later, in front of a crowd of over 100,000.”