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.”