Rink construction begins in Tampa for ‘super, super cool’ Stadium Series

TAMPA -- By mid-afternoon Tuesday, the crane had arrived at Raymond James Stadium, the football field turning into a hive of activity.

It was only 24 hours into the building of the ice rink that would become the 2026 Navy Federal Credit Union NHL Stadium Series, and already there were forklifts whirring, trucks backing up, and a low hum of conversation.

Years of work, of dreaming and scheming to turn the pie-in-the-sky idea of an outdoor game in the Florida heat, was finally turning into reality.

“Pretty [darn] cool, to be honest,” Tampa Bay Lightning captain Victor Hedman said, looking out at the stadium.

There are 12 days to go until the Lightning take on the Boston Bruins in the Stadium Series game on Feb. 1 (6:30 p.m. ET; ESPN, SN, TVAS), 12 days of building, 12 days of weather forecasts, 12 days of engineering marvels.

It will all culminate in perhaps the most daring outdoor game the NHL has yet put on.

“It’s going to be a dream come true,” Hedman continued.

It has also been years in the making.

Which is why two Mobile Refrigeration Units traveled here -- just as they had to the 2026 Discover NHL Winter Classic, which took place in Miami on Jan. 2 -- covering the extra needs of a rink built outdoors in a place with the potential heat and humidity of Florida.

Derek King, NHL vice president of facility hockey operations, harkened back to the 2018 All-Star Game, held in Tampa, when they created an outdoor ice bar at the park close to Benchmark International Arena. He recalled that, after the game, there was a little afternoon rainstorm.

As he put it, “There went the ice bar. Knowing that, we knew there was going to be some challenges.”

They’re taking them head-on. The laser-leveled stage deck started to be installed Tuesday, the first building blocks of what will become an NHL-caliber sheet of ice.

“Right now, everything’s going really good,” King said. “We’re, I think, a little bit ahead of schedule. As you can see behind us, the floor is starting to go down, the stage deck, and GNB -- the group that’s doing the fabric tension building -- they’ve got all the blocks down, the rail’s going down, and then the crane’s sitting on the field right now.

“This afternoon we’ll start to see the trusses go up, and that’s when it’s all going to start coming together for us.”

And that’s where the most innovative part of this most innovative Stadium Series game begins, with that climate-controlled tent constructed by GNB Global, a 34-foot high, 125-foot wide, 240-foot long state-of-the-art structure that will be built to help ensure the ice is in NHL-ready condition before being dismantled on gameday.

It’s an idea that started when King ran into one of the owners of GNB in an airport years ago. There was a flight delay and the two got to chatting.

“They’re saying, ‘Hey, if you ever need a tent for an event, let us know,’” King said. “It was just a connection at an airport, meeting people at the right time. It’s been a really good relationship so far.”

The tent is the key to the whole thing, a bulwark against heat and humidity, against rain, allowing for a surface of about 2 1/2 to 3 inches of ice, keeping the temperatures even within the structure even as gameday approaches. And then they’ll take it down, with the cranes entering the venue around 4 a.m. on Feb. 1, with the crews being able to dismantle each section in about 20-25 minutes, spanning from about 6 a.m. to 4 p.m.

It’s also why, with nearly two weeks until the game, King and Andrew Higgins, NHL senior manager of facilities operations, haven’t yet started obsessing over the forecast. They’ll start doing that about 2-3 days before the first practices. For now, it looks like mid-to-low 60 degrees Fahrenheit at puck drop, which is “pretty much perfect for us, it’s the same sort of conditions we have in our venues,” Higgins said.

But if that isn’t the case, if it is indeed warmer?

“It just means our trucks will have to work a little bit harder,” Higgins said, noting that a heavy, warm rain is really the only weather that could prove truly difficult to work around.

The trucks will be ready. The players will be too.

Hedman is familiar with outdoor hockey. Not only did the Lightning play in the Stadium Series against the Nashville Predators on Feb. 26, 2022, but it was an integral part of his childhood back in Sweden, with a rink close to his house, where he spent his afterschool hours, his weekends, his time with his buddies.

It was hockey as he knew it back home.

But he never quite expected it to come to Tampa.

“At the start of my career, no,” Hedman said. “But as things have progressed and we’ve seen it in [Los Angeles], we knew there was a possibility. But a lot of credit to the Lightning organization for supporting this and wanting to have this, and obviously to the NHL for rewarding us to host a game here.”

The Lightning are ready for the experience, ready for Gasparilla on the preceding Friday and Saturday, ready to get to the rink for warmups -- their arrival outfits are “all set,” as Hedman put it -- ready to see the atmosphere and everything that comes with the spectacle.

“I think everyone’s just super excited for the whole experience,” Hedman said. “Obviously the main goal about the game is still to get two points, but just the whole experience is going to be super, super cool.”