Blake Wheeler not a fan of ice conditions in Panthers’ arena

Hockey arenas in warm climates struggle with the playing surface, and Blake Wheeler has critiqued the ice conditions in the venue the Florida Panthers play in.

The Winnipeg Jets lost 6-4 to the Florida Panthers on Thursday night. Jets winger Blake Wheeler scored his eighth goal of the season in the game, extending his scoring streak to four straight games after being named the NHL’s first star of the week for last week.

As the NHL has expanded or relocated to more cities in warmer climates over the last two decades-plus, keeping the playing surface in proper condition is an ongoing challenge in California, Florida, Texas and Arizona. Even with that presumed knowledge of the difficulty inherent with keeping ice well-maintained in Florida, but perhaps with a loss still fresh on his mind, Wheeler was not complementary of the ice conditions in BB&T Center after Thursday night’s game.

Wheeler is a Minnesota native, he played his college hockey at the University of Minnesota and has spent his NHL career in Boston and Winnipeg (save for one season in Atlanta, before the Thrashers moved to Canada and became a new rendition of the Jets). So he probably knows good ice when he sees it, and by comparison he surely knows what bad ice looks like too. But his criticism is hardly new, even with the uniquely offered alternative of playing roller hockey in the parking lot, and players league-wide won’t be letting it go anytime soon.

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As long as there’s money to be made, and fans remain interested in the majority of those markets, the NHL won’t be taking teams out of warm weather cities. Case in point is the new team that started play in Las Vegas this season. Wheeler and the Jets have already made their trip to Vegas for the season, back on Nov. 10, with no known comments from him about the ice conditions in T-Mobile Arena.