2026 Heritage Classic rink build personal for NHL executive King

WINNIPEG -- The NHL’s mobile ice plant is a technological marvel, designed to build NHL-ready outdoor ice surfaces across a variety of challenging climates.

Whether in Southern California or in the outdoor hockey hotbeds across the Canadian prairies, the modern creation of outdoor hockey ice brings the game full circle and back to the historic roots of the game.

Preparations with the mobile ice plant are underway at Princess Auto Stadium in Winnipeg ahead of the 2026 Tim Hortons NHL Heritage Classic between the Winnipeg Jets and Montreal Canadiens on Oct. 25 (7 p.m. ET; TVAS, SN, TNT, truTV, HBO MAX). And like the game itself, Derek King is also returning to his roots as he leads a team of more than 100 people in the weekslong build of the ice surface.

“It's nice to be home to do a game like this,” King, a native of Winnipeg and the NHL vice president of hockey operations, who oversees and advises on all League facility operations, said Tuesday. "I think that's what's cool, right? If you look back to where this game started, everyone's out on a pond or on a lake playing hockey. So we've tried to do that with what we're doing with the outdoor games. Here you've got that real, true feeling of being outdoors. There's no retractable roof. Whatever the elements are in game day, that's what we're going to see. So I think that's pretty special.”

What makes outdoor games special to hockey fans often are the childhood memories it sparks of games of shinny played on frozen ponds, outdoor community rinks, or a rink in their own backyard.

King knows all about that. He is still making hockey rinks, the same way he did as a teenager volunteering at his local rink on the outskirts of Winnipeg, garden hose in hand, creating ice for hockey to be played.

“I was doing that yesterday at home before I came here,” King said. “Trying to get the kids their backyard rink up.”

Bringing the game of hockey back to the way it was played long ago is what makes the Heritage Classic, Winter Classic and Stadium Series outdoor games so distinct. Preparing outdoor NHL venues across a variety of warm- and cold-weather climates is only made possible by the League’s one-of-a-kind mobile refrigeration unit and rink system.

King said the 53-foot, 300-ton-capacity refrigeration unit stabilizes ice temperatures by utilizing as much as 3,000 gallons of glycol coolant and can dynamically lower or even raise temperatures within the ice to ensure an optimal NHL-caliber playing surface.

“As technology changes, we like to stay up with that,” King said. “We have sensors in the ice that'll tell us what the temperature is (under the ice), what the temperature is on the top surface, sensors throughout the truck that'll tell us glycol temperatures, what the flow is. We'll pay really close attention to that to provide the best sheet possible on game day.

“It's going to be a daily thing (until puck drop),” King added. “There's no breaks. … No days off.”

The tireless work is to ensure fans experience NHL hockey in a unique way.

“At Princess Auto Stadium for (Winnipeg Blue Bombers) games, it's amazing,” said King of the 32,343-seat Canadian Football League stadium. “I can only imagine now you're going to bring that number of fans to a Jets game, it’s going to be pretty special here on game day.”