Winter Classic in Miami providing ‘different level of excitement’

MIAMI -- Gustav Forsling got his first glimpse Thursday.

Wearing his throwback Florida Panthers uniform for the team picture, the defenseman stepped out of the third base dugout at loanDepot park. Normally the home of the Miami Marlins of Major League Baseball, the stadium was dressed up for the 2026 Discover NHL Winter Classic.

“This is awesome,” he said, looking around. “Wow.”

Wait till the roof opens.

The Panthers and New York Rangers practiced in the afternoon, so the NHL closed the sliding glass panels in left field and the retractable roof overhead to protect the ice from the sun.

But they will play at night Friday (8 p.m. ET; HBO MAX, truTV, TNT, SNW, SNO, SNE, TVAS). The sun will be down, and the temperature is expected to be in the low 60s or high 50s Fahrenheit.

At some point before face-off, the League will open those glass panels, revealing the lights of the downtown Miami skyline, and that roof, exposing the ice to the elements like it has planned to all along.

“It’s going to be cool,” Forsling said. “Maybe see some stars.”

Who knows what you might see?

“One of my favorite parts about these games is the walkout,” said Panthers forward Brad Marchand, who will play an NHL outdoor game for the fourth time. “When you walk out, you’re walking to the rink, and you get to take that all in. You get to see the scenery, hopefully see the city in the background and the roof opened up and just the different environment that you’re in. It makes it very special.”

The NHL has staged 43 outdoor games since 2003-04, including 16 Winter Classics at New Year’s, transforming regular-season games into spectacles and drawing a combined 2,240,068 fans. That’s an average of 54,636 (not counting two games without fans in attendance during the COVID-19 pandemic), three times the crowd in an 18,000-seat arena.

Clearly, fans and players love these events. Teams want to host them.

Few thought the NHL would ever be able to play an outdoor game in Florida because of the heat and humidity. But it has played in temperatures ranging from minus-6 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit at face-off, learning from experience and improving its process.

The Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning each pushed for an outdoor game and earned it on the ice. The Lightning won the Stanley Cup in 2020 and 2021, then returned to the Cup Final in 2022. The Panthers made the Cup Final in 2023, then won the Cup in 2024 and 2025.

So, the NHL found a way to host the first two outdoor games in the Sunshine State. After this season, only one NHL team will not have appeared in an outdoor game: the Utah Mammoth, who are in their second season in Salt Lake City.

LoanDepot park made sense because of the retractable roof. The NHL knew it could close the roof and crank the air conditioning to make the ice, then open the roof for the game at night. The League also decided to use two Mobile Refrigeration Units instead of one for the first time.

The NHL will go to greater lengths when the Lightning host the Boston Bruins in the 2026 Navy Federal Credit Union Stadium Series on Feb. 1 (6:30 p.m. ET; ESPN, SN, TVAS). Tampa has no stadium with a retractable roof. The League will build an air-conditioned tent on the field to make the ice at Raymond James Stadium, home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the National Football League, then remove it before the game.

“The two outdoor games that we play here between here and Tampa are just going to add more excitement, more love for the game,” Marchand said. “It’s going to give another opportunity for people to grow the sport.”

Not everyone grew up in a cold climate like Marchand did in Canada. Why shouldn’t fans in warm-weather climates get a chance to enjoy an NHL outdoor game if the League can make it happen? Florida ranks second in the NHL in average attendance at 19,476. This Winter Classic has sold out like all the others and will have a crowd of more than 35,000.

“This is the closest you’re going to get to an outdoor game that people down here don’t get to experience,” Marchand said. “It’s just a different level of excitement and a different insight into what we get to grow up with as kids being able to play pond hockey in the winter.”

The NHL has staged many outdoor games in traditional places and celebrated nostalgia.

Well, now it’s going to blow the roof off in Miami.

The fans in the stands will be comfortable in a hoodie or hockey sweater. Panthers coach Paul Maurice said he might be warm in his coat on the bench, and that will be fine with him.

Maurice coached two Heritage Classics with the Winnipeg Jets, including a 2-1 overtime win against the Calgary Flames at Mosaic Stadium in Regina, Saskatchewan, on Oct. 26, 2019. It was 27 degrees Fahrenheit at face-off.

“There was something about the one we had in Regina,” he said. “It was snowing. Bryan Little overtime winner, and the snow’s falling. I’ll never forget it. One of my favorite hockey memories. But this will be too, right? It’ll be special.”