The league's first outdoor game in Florida is on Friday

PublishedDecember 30, 2025 3:20 PM EST•UpdatedDecember 30, 2025 2:23 PM EST

On Friday, for the first time, we're going to get some outdoor NHL hockey in Florida.

I mean, that sentence alone sounds insane, but it's really about time. With the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning winning four of the last six Stanley Cup Finals, the Sunshine State has become the state of hockey.

Sorry, Minnesota…

The first of two Floridian outdoor games is the 2026 Winter Classic between the Panthers and the New York Rangers. Now, we've got our first look at the field around the rink at loanDepot Park.

It's very, very Florida, but with a dash of the white stuff… no, not that white stuff, I meant snow.

According to the NHL, the theme is  "Snowy Winter Comes to Sunny Florida," and from what we're seeing, that tracks. 

One half of the field is done up with sand, while the other half is done up with snow. I like it, even if it feels a little like Disney's Blizzard Beach water park.

The sandy side has beach chairs, flamingos, a lifeguard stand, and a street hockey rink, while the snowy side has a lot of the same — just covered in snow — and the street hockey rink is replaced with a synthetic ice rink.

I think it's pretty damn cool, and the pink and blue color scheme is uniquely South Florida. It's also cool how the league mixed the traditional snowy, Winter Classic feel with some tropical flavor.

But, is it my favorite Winter Classic field design?

It's one of the better ones, but no.

It's going to take a lot to dethrone what we got from the 2024 Winter Classic between the Vegas Golden Knights and Seattle Kraken at T-Mobile Park in Seattle.

The game that pitted the NHL's two newest teams at the time against each other featured a nautical-themed field that included a kraken pulling a boat into the briny deep.

Yeah, that was killer.

The 2026 Winter Classic gets underway on January 2 at 8 PM ET.