Stadium Series in Tampa NHL's most ambitious outdoor game ever

Jeff Vinik has wanted to host an NHL outdoor game since buying the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2010.

"It's always been a priority for us," the Lightning chairman said.

The Lightning pushed for it after hosting the 2018 NHL All-Star Game, posting a billboard for NHL officials to see on their way to the airport.

It showed a rendering of Raymond James Stadium with a Lightning logo on the scoreboard and an ice rink on the field, plus a concept of an NHL Stadium Series logo with the sun, a couple of palm trees, some waves and the words "TAMPA BAY."

"THANK YOU, NHL!" it said. "NEXT TIME, LET'S GO OUTSIDE THE BOX!"

"That timing wasn't right," NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said. "But over the last few years, we've remained focused, Jeff Vinik has remained relentless, and we've continued to think about and explore the ways we could do it, and we think we've got it right."

The NHL is about to stage the most ambitious outdoor game in its history.

The ice trucks will arrive at Raymond James Stadium on Jan. 19. The League will build an air-conditioned tent on the field and make the ice inside of it, then remove the tent and decorate the field in about a six-hour span on game day.

The Lightning will host the Boston Bruins in the 2026 Navy Federal Credit Union NHL Stadium Series the night of Feb. 1 (6:30 p.m. ET; ESPN, SN, TVAS).

Bettman has called it an "engineering marvel."

The more you dig into the details, the more you understand why.

"The Lightning have been after an outdoor game for years," NHL president of content and events Steve Mayer said. "In the past, we never had the confidence that we could protect the most important commodity, the rink. Now we're confident we're going to get it done, and we're going to put on one of our most memorable games."

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The Lightning deserved to host an outdoor game, especially after winning the Stanley Cup in 2020 and 2021. Bettman said it didn't go unnoticed that they brought about 25,000 fans when they visited the Nashville Predators in the Stadium Series on Feb. 26, 2022. They have sold out 438 straight home games, the longest active streak in the League.

Obviously, the issue was making ice outdoors.

How would you make an NHL-caliber sheet in the heat and humidity? How would you protect it from rain?

"When we're told we're going to a certain market, we always think about it, and then we give our answer," NHL executive vice president of hockey operations Kris King said. "This was our quickest answer. ‘Are you crazy?' But after all the time and work we've put in, I'm confident we're going to have a heck of a game."

The NHL has staged 44 outdoor games, playing in all kinds of venues and conditions, learning from each experience and improving the process. The League has built rinks in baseball stadiums, in football stadiums and even on a golf course. It has dealt with sun, wind, snow and rain, with temperatures ranging from minus-6 degrees Fahrenheit to 65 at face-off.

For a typical outdoor game, it takes about four days to build the structure of the rink. Workers lay a laser-leveled stage deck on the ground, lay 253 interlocking aluminum ice pans in three rows on top of the deck and surround the pans with the boards, the glass and everything else.

Then it takes about seven days to make the ice itself. The NHL trucks in a Mobile Refrigeration Unit, an ice plant inside a semi-trailer. Workers run pipes from the trailer to the pans, and the ice plant pumps glycol through them, pulling heat from the surface and venting it from the trailer.

The ice crew often works overnight, when the sun is down and the air is cooler. The workers don't just flood the pans with water. They spray layer after layer of fine mist, hour after hour, day after day, to build a dense, thick sheet suitable for the highest level of professional hockey.

At one point, they paint it white, then add more layers. At another point, they add the lines and logos -- which are made of fabric, because the sun can make dark paint run even in cold weather -- then add more layers.

In the end, the ice is usually about 2 to 2½ inches thick, about an inch thicker than in an arena, creating a larger margin for error. Water can be removed rather than added, if necessary. The League uses sensors to monitor the ice temperature around the clock and insulated blankets to protect it from the sun.

Florida presents unique problems. Humidity leads to frost. Frost leads to friction. Friction leads to skates and pucks not sliding the way they should.

The NHL quietly experimented with building outdoor rinks in Florida and couldn't control the frost.

"We found out we need to control the environment, and the best way to do that is to have an enclosed area," King said.

The NHL had an enclosed area for the first outdoor game in the Sunshine State: the 2026 Discover NHL Winter Classic between the Florida Panthers and New York Rangers in Miami on Jan. 2.

LoanDepot park, the home of the Miami Marlins of Major League Baseball, has a retractable roof. The NHL left the roof closed, cranked the air conditioning while making the ice, and opened the roof right before the game.

The League used two Mobile Refrigeration Units instead of one for the first time and played at 8 p.m. ET. The temperature was 63.1 degrees Fahrenheit at face-off, making it the second-warmest outdoor game in NHL history. It was 65 for the Stadium Series at Coors Field in Denver on Feb. 27, 2016.

But what about Tampa?

The area has no stadium with a retractable roof.

The NHL decided to construct its own temporary retractable roof at Raymond James Stadium, the home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the National Football League, working with a third-party company for three years to iron out the details.

"This has been the longest prelude to an outdoor game we've ever had," King said.

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How exactly do you build a tent, make the ice inside of it and remove the tent safely in a tight timeframe?

The early ideas included a helicopter carrying away the tent, but that wouldn't work.

Calling it a tent really doesn't do it justice.

This will be a tension fabric building, a steel-framed structure covered in engineered membrane material. It will be massive -- 34 feet high, 125 feet wide and 240 feet long -- and able to withstand 140-mph winds.

The tent will take two or three days to construct. Most importantly, it will take about six hours to disassemble. It will be built in sections on rails, so the NHL can put it together and take it apart without doing it over the rink itself.

When the NHL plays an outdoor game in a football stadium, the rink typically stretches between the 15-yard lines. At Raymond James Stadium, there is retractable seating at one end for concert stages. The NHL will remove that seating to use the space.

While one set of workers builds the structure of the rink as usual, another set of workers will build the rails alongside the rink, assemble the tent section by section in the end zone and slide the finished sections over the rink.

Once the tent is finished, the NHL will blast the air conditioning and build the ice inside. NHL senior director of hockey operations Derek King said the League would aim for 60 degrees and a dew point of 38.

The League will watch the weather forecast. At the best time before the game, workers will slide the tent off the rink and disassemble it section by section, protecting the ice with insulated blankets. They will carry away pieces of the tent and disguise the rails as part of the décor.

"Because of what we're building and what we have to do, until we take it down, you won't see how the field's going to be decorated," Bettman said. "We're going to basically do that on wheels. It'll all be designed, but it won't be put out there until before the game.

"This will be different than anything you've ever seen."

NHL executive vice president of events Dean Matsuzaki said the biggest challenge will be coordinating schedules, especially for the dismantling process.

"The biggest difference here is just the size and scope of this project," Matsuzaki said. "Our rink build is big enough, but we're adding this whole other component on top. We've thought of all the different scenarios. We hope we've thought of everything."

The League has done multiple dry runs to test the timing, giving it confidence it could pull this off. But it will remain vigilant and ready for adapt.

"I know we're going to be able to build a rink under this tent and have a rink that's safe and similar to what our players play on in other outdoor games," Kris King said. "But once you start dismantling this big tent, then we're going to find out what we have, so we're going to take every precaution, every step we need to take, to make sure that ice is ready once we drop that puck."

The NHL is using two Mobile Refrigeration Units again and will play at night on this date by design. The average high in Tampa on Feb. 1 is 70.9 degrees Fahrenheit; the average low is 52.7.

"The day that we're playing the game is probably the best weather day of the year for having a hockey game in Tampa, Florida," Vinik said. "The systems that we're putting in place and how it's being tented and all is to make it a successful event, and I'm sure it will be.

"The League does an incredible job, and we wanted to share that with our fans in Tampa and let them have that experience. Technology's come a long way over the last 15 years, and now it's time."