Boston Bruins
“I can’t believe that this is the rink we’re playing this game on tomorrow.”
The Bruins practiced within a tent structure on Saturday at Raymond James Stadium. Conor Ryan / Boston.com
January 31, 2026 | 3:54 PM
4 minutes to read
TAMPA — The Bruins are no strangers to lacing up their skates and taking to the great outdoors at this point.
Sunday’s Stadium Series showdown at Raymond James Stadium will stand as the fourth outdoor game for both David Pastrnak and Sean Kuraly. Previous treks include locales like Fenway Park, Lake Tahoe, and Notre Dame Stadium.
As such, skating at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ home stadium isn’t exactly a departure from other rinks outside of traditional hockey barns.
But Saturday was a different story for both the Bruins and Lightning.
While both clubs’ lone practice before the Stadium Series was held on the frozen sheet at Raymond James Stadium, the entire playing surface was covered in a state-of-the-art tent designed to keep the ice intact before playing outdoors in Florida.
The Bruins are practicing at Raymond James Stadium – but inside a temporary tent structure to keep the temps and humidity low.
(They won’t need it for tomorrow, given it’s gonna be in the 30s at puck drop.) pic.twitter.com/KAgKSgisXS
— Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) January 31, 2026
“That felt like some of the youth ranks I played in when I was a kid — when you just feel like you’re in a bubble,” Charlie McAvoy said after Saturday’s practice. “We used to have a bubble that we played in Freeport, New York. So that’s what it kind of felt like.
“I kept saying, like, I can’t believe that this is the rink we’re playing this game on tomorrow. When you take the tent off it, it’ll feel night-and-day different. I’m sure.”
In order to ensure that the ice surface remained intact amid the elements in Florida, the NHL crafted a steel-framed, air-conditioned structure over the rink — with the tent remaining in place until midnight on Sunday.
Initially propped up over two weeks ago, the tent — measuring 34 feet high, 125 feet wide and 240 feet long — is covered in an engineered membrane material designed to both trap in the cold air, keep out humidity, and also remain intact amid whipping winds.
It’s a bit of a departure from some of the barns that Morgan Geekie — a product of Strathclair, Manitoba — skated in while growing up.
“I mean, if it was wood and had chicken wire and stuff,” Geekie said of any comparisons between Saturday’s locale and of the rinks he skated in. “This is pretty high-tech, from where I came from.”
The setting of Saturday’s skate was more akin to the gardening department at Lowe’s than a rink, albeit at a much lower temperature.
Anchored by two refrigeration units and supported by several HVAC and dehumidification units to prevent frost build-up, the structure has operated with a dew point of 38 degrees Fahrenheit for weeks now.
“Building the ice for NHL outdoor games is always exciting, but this one is cool. Not only are we building an ice rink inside Raymond James Stadium, we’re also going to build a fully enclosed refrigerated tent to make sure that ice is ready for puck drop,” Derek King, NHL Vice President, Hockey Operations noted. “Sunshine, rain and humidity are all big factors and controlling these elements for as long as possible while we’re building the ice will be essential.”
Beyond the structure itself, the NHL also set down the ice surface at three inches thick — much more than the standard 1.5-inch depth in an indoor arena to safeguard against any erosion due to the weather.
Still, the prevailing sentiment after practice was that the ice was still soft across multiple areas — as is usually the case for outdoor games.
“You just have to simplify a little bit how you play your game,” Hampus Lindholm said. “Don’t try to [start] the first shift with a cross-ice pass or try to do anything too much. I think it was a little soft out there, but we’ve played in so many different rinks. …You find ways to get used to it.”
Granted, the NHL’s efforts to safeguard against the conditions may not even be necessary given Sunday’s weather forecast.
The average high on February 1 in Tampa is 71 degrees — which would stand as the warmest puck-drop temperature for a game in NHL history.
But Sunday won’t be shorts weather in Tampa —with the current forecast calling for a high of 49 degrees and temperature hovering around the 30s by the time of puck drop at 6:30 p.m.
Ironically, Sunday’s projected temps are set to be colder than the 2023 Winter Classic held at Fenway — with the thermometers reading at 51 degrees at puck drop in early January.
For McAvoy, the colder the better — even to the dismay of Bruins fans who were looking to escape the chilly conditions up north.
“I want it to be colder, so the ice is better,” McAvoy noted.
For Bolts head coach Jon Cooper, Sunday’s forecast is a fitting result for a game once envisioned as pushing new boundaries for the NHL in the Sunshine State.
“It’s crazy, because I think last Feb. 1, if I remember correctly, it was like 81 degrees in Tampa. …. But I don’t know if, in the 13 years I’ve been in Tampa, I will feel the temperature as cold as it’s going to be tomorrow,” Cooper said. “This game was meant to be played in cold weather.
“And I think for 65,000 people, I know a lot of people are coming from the north that have already experienced this, but there’ll be a lot of people that haven’t, and for them, I’m happy, because this is what we’ve experienced our entire life on the frozen pond outside, up ’till dark. And essentially, that’s what we’re gonna be doing, is playing it under the lights at night.”
Conor Ryan is a staff writer covering the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox for Boston.com, a role he has held since 2023.
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