Hockey in Florida isn’t anything new. After all, the defending Stanley Cup Champions reside in the Sunshine State. The Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning have become some of the best teams in the league despite people initially believing hockey could never work in warmer areas.
Outdoor hockey, though, is something that would be new to the state, and it’s something that the NHL is planning on bringing to the table in 2026. The league announced that it will have both the Panthers and Lightning hosting their two biggest events outside of the Stanley Cup Finals with the Winter Classic in Miami and Stadium Series in Tampa.
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That naturally leads to the question, how the fuck are they going to put an outdoor ice rink in Florida?
The NHL is Bringing Outdoor Hocking to Florida
While many of these outdoor games have resided in the North, there were games in California that showed it was possible to hold a hockey game outside if it’s not 32 degrees or cooler.
The Winter Classic in Miami won’t be an issue whatsoever. The LoanDepot Park is a dome so with it being temperature controlled, making ice isn’t an issue. The Stadium Series in Tampa will be where it gets interesting.
The event will be at Raymond James Stadium, home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, an arena that is not a dome. In order to make ice, the NHL will go to some extreme measures.
There will be a bubble, of sorts, constructed over top of the field. The New York Times article referred to it as “a giant warehouse over the ice” which kind of perfectly sums it up. This structure will utilize everything from concrete to metal.
A company that’s based in Dallas will be behind this design, working on a way to build and maintain the ice from the outdoor elements that would be working against the process of making ice.
“This will be built over the field in Tampa. It will then be removed… to be able to play the game on game day, and then it’s no different than all of our other outdoor games that we deal with sun, with heat, with humidity, with rain, with snow, with winds… and that’s kind of the intrigue and allure of the game,” said the NHL’s president of business, Keith Wachtel.
Florida star, Alessandro Barkov, told NHL.com it’s an exciting opportunity and has a unique feel due to it being “a little different with the Florida weather.”
Ironically, Mother Nature could end up cooperating with these games. The state is dealing with the possibility of subfreezing temps. Sounds like hockey weather to me!
