Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

A video game, a six-foot tall Russian, 25,945 screaming people, honking horns on the Gandy Bridge – these are the things necessary to turn a Caribbean-born fifteen-year old boy into a full-blooded hockey fanatic.

Here’s how much I knew about ice and such when I first moved to the States when I was six: when I experienced my first winter in Miami, I stared out the window waiting for the first snowflakes to fall. My mother talked me away from the cool glass, explaining that the mid-fifties simply weren’t going to be enough to produce snow.

By the time I learned that winter was just a mythical thing that drove people to Miami, I also learned to love the Dolphins and Marlins – both local sports teams, both common marine animals, both common losers.

Moving to Tampa in 1993 meant no losing baseball team – no team at all. The football team was actually worse, with worse uniforms to boot (sorry, Bucco Bruce apologists).

But there was also the Lightning. They were lousy too, but the sport they played was just strange enough to pique my interest. And thanks to EA’s NHL ‘94 video game, I eventually learned the rules.

Still it rarely moved beyond video game obsession. It was difficult to follow a sport no one cared about – there was exactly one classmate of mine who cared about hockey (he played). And the Lightning still stunk (Some disclosure however: I rooted for the Florida Panthers over the Bolts at first, purely because of the Miami connection. As I grew happier about Tampa, I got over it.).

Then came April 21, 1996. My brother took me to the Lightning’s first ever home playoff game.

It was the greatest sporting event I’ve ever attended. Every second of the game was breathtaking; I say that not to be cliche, but because lack of oxygen might explain why I don’t remember a second of the actual game before Alexander Selivanov (in case you’re wondering, he’s been playing in Germany) scored the game winner in overtime. 5-4 over the Philadelphia Flyers.

I do remember every second after the goal. I remember high-fiving every one of the 25.944 other people in attendance – some of them were Flyers fans, but I didn’t mind. I remember one obnoxious Flyer fan getting a beer bath from one not terribly sporting Lightning fan. I remember helping my brother honk the horn at every other honking car from the ThunderDome all the way over the Gandy Bridge and well into Tampa.

This was winning; this was hockey. I was hooked. Nevermind that no other game has ever been like that. Nevermind that the Bolts have lost every playoff game I’ve seen them play since then (good thing I missed Game 7 against the Calgary Flames, huh?).

Thanks to that game, I happily count the Tampa Bay Lightning as my favorite sports franchise and hockey as my favorite spectator sport, despite the fact that I can’t even ice skate.

Naturally it’s now your turn – what’s your greatest Tampa sports memory? You know what to do.