{"id":209556,"date":"2025-09-25T21:01:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T21:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/209556\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T21:01:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T21:01:14","slug":"tampa-bay-lightning-gives-big-boost-to-local-hockey-with-new-upgrade-at-pinellas-park-rink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/209556\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa Bay Lightning Gives Big Boost to Local Hockey With New Upgrade at Pinellas Park Rink"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Lightning Foundation will spend $100,000 to transform an outdoor rink at Sprowls Horizon Sports Park in Pinellas Park. Workers aim to wrap up the project by February 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Fresh flooring, new benches, and a modern scorebox will update the rink within the sports complex. This site will replace the aging Youth Park spot.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s important for the growth of hockey in the Pinellas County area,&#8221; said Josh Dreith, director of community and hockey development, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/stpetecatalyst.com\/tampa-bay-lightning-invest-in-pinellas-park-sports-complex\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">St. Pete Catalyst<\/a>. &#8220;We want to give young kids the opportunity to learn the game of hockey after we visit them at a school.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Six turf diamonds will shine at the heart of the complex. Players can practice at six batting cages, while others enjoy the multipurpose field or playground. Construction started last December.<\/p>\n<p>Back in 2019, the NHL team funded the first rink at Youth Park. When city plans surfaced about redevelopment, they jumped at the chance to make things better.<\/p>\n<p>No other hockey spots exist in Pinellas Park. &#8220;It&#8217;s a unique offering to that community,&#8221; Dreith said.<\/p>\n<p>Staff from the Lightning will run programs at the complex. They want everyone \u2014 kids, teens, and adults \u2014 \u00a0to get a shot at playing.<\/p>\n<p>Pinellas Park City Manager Bart Diebold shared his thoughts, &#8220;Our greatest hope is that as kids step onto this rink, seeing that iconic Lightning logo, they&#8217;ll be inspired to dream big \u2014 envisioning themselves as the next Nikita Kucherov or Victor Hedman, and believing anything is possible.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The baseball section mirrors spring training fields from the major leagues. This shows how much the city wants its people to have first-rate places to play sports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Lightning Foundation will spend $100,000 to transform an outdoor rink at Sprowls Horizon Sports Park in Pinellas&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5105],"tags":[5,189,4,34673,540,92,5168,5167],"class_list":{"0":"post-209556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-lightning","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-lightning","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-pinellas-park","12":"tag-tampa-bay","13":"tag-tampa-bay-lightning","14":"tag-tampabay","15":"tag-tampabaylightning"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115266957162497844","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}