Hockey season is upon us at last, which means it’s time to start planning those trips to see your favourite team in action on the road. Been dying to see this city, or that part of North America? To climb into an intimate bubble with a couple of buddies to escape the workaday drudgery for a little while? If it feels real, do it.



But once you’ve made it to Buffalo, or Columbus, or Dallas, what happens next? More to the point: where are you going to eat?



To that end, here is the first edition of The Athletic’s NHL Food and Drink Travel Guide. Because if there’s one thing hockey reporters love at least as much as the game they cover, it’s ferreting out cool spots for food and libation in the cities they travel to. What follows is a compendium of the places we’ve discovered over the years.



It may be that you live in one of the league’s 31 cities, and if so it’s exceedingly likely you have a thousand and one...