Hockey. Open air. In Florida.
Subsequent season, the NHL is making it occur — twice.
The NHL introduced Wednesday that the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers will play host to the New York Rangers at loanDepot Park in Miami — house of baseball’s Marlins — on Jan. 2, 2026, within the Winter Classic, with the Tampa Bay Lightning taking part in host to the Boston Bruins at Raymond James Stadium on Feb. 1, 2026, in a Stadium Sequence recreation.
“Stanley Cups, strings of sellouts and the exponential development of youth and highschool hockey all through the state have demonstrated that Florida is a hockey hotbed,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman mentioned.
“Out of doors NHL video games within the Sunshine State? By no means let it’s mentioned that our league isn’t prepared to just accept a problem.”
It’s a very long time coming, however the Panthers and Lightning have represented the Japanese Convention in every of the final 5 Stanley Cup Finals and so they’ve constructed closely engaged fan bases.
And each franchises have requested the NHL to convey an outside recreation — or two, on this case — to the Sunshine State for a few years.
The league listened.
“To have the ability to have a good time these two franchises towards nice Unique Six groups, I feel, is phenomenal,” Panthers President Matthew Caldwell mentioned. “And I feel our time has come. We deserve that out of doors recreation and we’re fired as much as have it proper right here regionally.”
The Marlins’ ballpark, positioned a few 45-minute drive south of the Panthers’ house area in Dawn, can maintain about 37,000 followers. Raymond James Stadium — house of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers — can maintain about 65,000 for many occasions, and capability may be elevated a bit if obligatory.
“We couldn’t be extra excited for this landmark occasion to lastly arrive for Bolts Nation and the Tampa Bay neighborhood,” Lightning CEO Steve Griggs mentioned.
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“This second has been a very long time coming, and we’re thrilled to see this dream develop into a actuality.”
These won’t be strange out of doors video games.
The excessive in Miami on Jan. 2 this yr was 78 Fahrenheit, or 25 Celsius.
The excessive in Tampa final yr on Feb. 1 was 66 F, or 19 C.
These temperatures, clearly, aren’t conducive to discovering ice exterior.
And the excessive game-time temperature for any of the earlier out of doors video games in NHL historical past, the league mentioned, was 65 F (18 C) for a recreation in Denver in 2016.
“We perceive it’s dangerous,” mentioned Steve Mayer, the NHL’s president of content material and occasions.
“I feel we prefer it. And it’s not a problem. It’s truly a chance for us.”
The Marlins’ loanDepot Park has a retractable roof and that may play a giant function in getting that stadium prepared for hockey. The air-con shall be cranked up — method up — and the Panthers-Rangers recreation shall be performed at evening with the roof open.
For the Lightning-Bruins recreation contained in the open-air stadium in Tampa, the NHL will construct a brief roof over the ice floor and take away it just some hours earlier than recreation time.
“We wish to convey a bit of little bit of a winter wonderland to Florida,” Mayer mentioned.
The video games in 2026 would be the forty fourth and forty fifth regular-season out of doors contests in NHL historical past. The Rangers are 5-0-0 of their earlier out of doors video games, Boston has received 4 of its 5 out of doors video games and the Lightning prevailed of their solely out of doors contest. The Panthers have by no means performed such a recreation.
“We get to broaden our nice sport,” Panthers common supervisor and hockey operations president Invoice Zito mentioned.
“We now have an opportunity to have 100,000 folks watching hockey dwell, exterior, in Florida. That’s unthinkable.”
“And the thrilling half and the enjoyable half is it’s rising. It’s getting greater. An increasing number of persons are turning into hockey followers in Florida.”
© 2025 The Canadian Press
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