TAMPA — The crew building the ice rink for the 2026 Navy Federal Credit Union Stadium Series feels it has hit the lottery despite it being one of the trickiest projects in the NHL\u2019s 23-year history of outdoor games.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the jackpot for us. Low to mid-60s [temperatures] is just fantastic for us, humidity is down,\u201d said Andrew Higgins, NHL senior manager of facilities operations. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t have asked for anything better. The conditions inside the [structure] are even better for us. We have had no delays, no stoppages in building ice. Couldn\u2019t ask for better.\u201d<\/p>\n
With weather in central Florida typically hot and humid this time of the year, the rink at the home of the NFL\u2019s Tampa Bay Buccaneers has been covered by a large, air-conditioned structure to ensure the ice is ready for the Tampa Bay Lightning and Boston Bruins to practice on Saturday and to play the game on it Sunday (6:30 p.m. ET; ESPN, SN, TVAS).<\/p>\n
But historically cool temperatures have negated much of the risks of playing outdoors in the Sunshine State.<\/p>\n
The temperature reached a high of 66 degrees Fahrenheit at 3 p.m. on Thursday. It\u2019s expected to be slightly warmer Friday, but the high on Saturday is expected to be 56, with forecasters calling for a high of 46 on Sunday. At puck drop, the forecast calls for 41 degrees.<\/p>\n
Because of that, the ice crew and NHL executives have even started to explore the possibility of removing the protective structure earlier than planned.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have looked ahead to what weather we are going to see [this weekend],\u201d said Derek King, NHL vice president of hockey operations. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be cooler than we expected, so that\u2019s really good for us. It allows us to dial in the refrigeration units outside. We\u2019ll look at what we can do to get ahead for game day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA — The crew building the ice rink for the 2026 Navy Federal Credit Union Stadium Series feels…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":{"0":"post-137399","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-tampa","9":"tag-tampa-headlines","10":"tag-tampa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}