Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

Kids in Hillsborough County head back to school on Monday, and lots of those students are going to have to walk further to get to the bus stop:

The goal, he said, is to have two to 20 students per bus stop. Some elementary students will have to walk up to a mile and middle and high school students up to 1.5 miles.

Obviously, many of the bus routes have changed from years’ past.  But the School District of Hillsborough County had some trouble getting letters to the mailbox, and parents and students are not certain exactly how the kids are going to get to school, and where to catch the bus.

The Transportation Department is blaming lightning.  Wow - who could see that coming?

The Calusa Indian word “Tampa” means “sticks of fire,” a reference to lightning.  The local Arena League team is called the “Storm,” while the NHL team is called the “Lightning.”  Every day, all summer long, our meteorologists give us a look at the red splotches of thunderstorm activity, interspersed with flashing white flashes that indicate lightning.  You might recall that all of this leads to the Tampa Bay area being called the lightning capital of the United States.

All right, so lightning struck School Bus Central in Thonotosassa, delaying letters to bus riders and their parents.  They set up a hot line so you can find out the details of your kids’ trip to school.  To find out where and when your children catch the bus, call 813.982.5500.  But you may have to try that number more than once.  District officials say the line is often busy because of the lightning strike.

Oh, and for those of you who now have to walk to school or walk further to catch the bus, you may want to keep an eye out for any lightning strikes.

Barry Melrose is now officially the head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning, replacing the recently fired John Tortorella, under whom the Lightning won the Stanley Cup in 2004.

I don’t like it.

Having spent the last 13 years as a TV analyst on ESPN, promoting the mullet as a viable hairstyle and generally not being a hockey coach, in my opinion Melrose is as qualified to lead the Lightning as Willard Scott is to be the director of NOAA.

Of course, I should point out that it might be a good idea to ignore my opinion. After all, I once believed that signing Dave Andreychuk would turn out to be one of the dumbest things the Lightning had ever done.

(Cross posted at Ridiculous trickle of consciousness)

Unless Al Gore’s inconvenient forecast is overly optimistic, and in spite of the best efforts of Rob Higgins and Paul Catoe, Tampa Bay will never host the NHL’s Winter Classic. If you’re not familiar with what that is, it’s a regular season game between two National Hockey League teams… played outdoors. Not an exhibition, but an actual game whose results count in the standings. The NHL hopes to make this a regular, if not annual, occurrence. Previously, the Montreal Canadiens and Edmonton Oilers played an outdoor game four years ago. And Michigan and Michigan State played outdoors in 2001. This year’s Classic featured the Pittsburgh Penguins versus the Buffalo Sabres at Ralph Wilson Stadium, home of the NFL’s Buffalo Bills. The game drew an NHL record crowd of 71,217 who sat through snow and temperatures in the 20s to see the Penguins win 2-1 in a shootout. While debate continues over whether or not Tampa is a hockey town, uh, it gets cold here (although up north friends and relatives will vehemently disagree) but it ain’t gonna get…or more importantly, stay…that cold any time soon.

In spite of the poor playing conditions (weather necessitated near-constant ice maintenance), the game was a lot of fun to watch, with all that snow and players like Ryan Miller and his homemade toque getting into the spirit of it:

So I guess we’ll just have to accept that our Lightning are forever house-bound when it comes to home games and make do with all the Superbowls, Final Fours, college football bowl games and (at least hypothetically possible) World Series to satisfy our appetites when it comes to high profile sporting events.
(Cross posted at Ridiculously inconsistent trickle of consciousness)

The Tampa bay area has been fortunate to have been represented by a number of socially responsible individuals in professional sports who are active civically. Tony Dungy, George Steinbrenner, Derrick Brooks, Warrick Dunn and Brad Richards being standouts among them.

This week, those ranks swelled again with the announcement of Vincent Lecavalier’s $3-million dollar commitment to construction of the new All Children’s Hospital in downtown St. Petersburg, FL – specifically for a state-of-the art facility that will be named the Vincent Lecavalier Pediatric Cancer and Blood Disorders Center.

This really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, since it’s popularly held that among professional athletes, hockey players as a group are generally more down-to-earth and high-character individuals than others. To be sure, you don’t hear scandalous stories about steroids, crooked refs, sexual harassment, dog fighting or guns at strip clubs from the NHL. Of course, you could say that among the four major league professional sports, hockey has the lowest profile by far and thus less scrutiny, and you’d be 100% correct. But for those looking for role models among professional athletes, maybe the spotlight should shine a little brighter on the NHL.

Just because we’ve been away for awhile and so much has been missed we present a rare redux edition of the wide web of (tampa bay) sports. Up today, Rays Blogs square off in the Octagon, Kanes makes an offer you can’t refuse, and Curt Schilling further jams his foot down his mouth.

• (Blog Fight!) The Rays may not be interesting but at least their fan blogs still are. To recap, first DRays Bay implied Rays fans were idiots. The Rays Index called DRays Bay out on it. To which DRays Bay responded. Then I went cross-eyed.

• (Now To Some Real Pseudo-News) After suggesting he would play for the Rays next season Curt Schilling has recanted, ON HIS BLOG! See, it was all a misunderstanding, much like WWII. Hitler didn’t invade Poland, he just crossed the border with a few friends to buy some kilbasa.

• (When Pigs Fly) Kane’s Furniture, who brought us the Devil Rays Kane’s Club, are offering free furniture for a year if the Gators can ONLY repeat as National Champions in football. AND they have to go undefeated. Quite the limb Kane’s is walking out on there.

• (Get St Louis To Sign Your Chest) Tomorrow is Ice Fest, the Bolts fanfest held at the St Pete Times Forum formerly known as the Ice Palace. Apparently the Bolts are unveiling new uniforms at the event, which are almost guaranteed to be worse than the current ones. But the new ownership group has to pay the bills some how.

After brief hiatus we have plenty of sports blogging goodness to share from around the intertubes and ebays. As the dog days of summer draw to a close so does baseball’s regular season, which means football is right around the corner.

• (At Least Everyone Can Agree Red Sox Fans Are Douchebags) Sure it’s two weeks old but that doesn’t make Rays Index’s Remapping of Florida within the United Countries of Baseball any less brilliant or understated. With the exception that more of the map could have been colored in the brownish shade of orange, there is little to quibble about in RI’s representation of baseball loyalties in the Sunshine State. Where do you fall on the map?

• (Obligatory USF Mention) The Fanhaus gives us their preview of The Juggernaut That Is To Be The University of South Florida Bulls. If the Bulls can get past Auburn early in the season (no easy task) they will have an easy schedule the rest of the way with Louisville and West F*cking Virginia both coming down to Tampa. Could USF be this year’s version of Rutgers?

• (But It’s Still Not The Best Bucs Blog) BucStats has been on fire this exhibition season with daily run downs of training camp and now position breakdowns, the latest taking aim at the safeties. Of note, is Sabby Piscitelli sure to be the next Great White Hope/Hype on the defense. Although my grandmother could start over Jermaine Phillips (she runs a a 4.3 40 and hits like a mack truck).

• (It’s A Sad Day When You Miss ESPN) Lastly but not leastly NBC has announced their NHL schedule and the Bolts Blog feels our beloved Lightning have been slighted. The Bolts did not garner a single game on national television. Which means out of area viewers can look forward to catching the Bolts on the bicycle racing network formerly known as the Outdoor Life Network.

Update 2:30pm: the one who uploaded the first video has already taken it down. Check YouTube for more videos that include lightning strikes.

Check out the natural beauty of Lightning strikes in Tampa:

Of course, if you try to capture the beautiful show on your video camera, you may not want to stand on your porch in the middle of a storm. Not only is it possible to be struck by lightning, but the accompanying thunder is so loud and sudden, you may just crap in your pants and all but drop your camera:

With Buccaneer training camp set to begin tomorrow we are finally getting out of the doldrums of summer baseball season, which around Tampa Bay means watching the Rays again battle for the worst record in the league. Although, as Tommy touched on, maybe suckitude is a right of passage for local teams.

• (Ten Years of Suckitude) Rays Index presents us with their all time Devil Rays roster, which in true Devil Rays fashion highlights such luminaries as Greg Vaughn, Vinny Castilla, and Joe Kennedy. The Professor hits the nail on the head when describing this all time Rays team, “Think of it as similar to the New York Yankees monument park, only the exact opposite and with headstones instead of plaques.”

• (The Ultimate Bulls Preview) Sunday Morning Quarterback shares with us everything you could possibly want to know about USF’s football team this season. SMQ, who is never short of words, writes of the local college football collective, “Oh yeah, South Florida’s all grown up, filled out, hanging with hotter friends, looking pretty good in the right circumstances. You know you could pick USF if you wanted, dude. No one would judge you.“

• (It’s Just the Best Bucs Blog Ever) On the eve of training camp yours truly shares five position battles to watch over the next month, none of which include Jeff Garcia, Chris Simms or Jake Plummer. And maybe it’s just me but I start getting the shakes every time I type the words “Bucs” and “training camp” in the same sentence.

• (Congrats Erin) It’s rare for a blogger to actually get paid for what they do and even rarer (if not unheard of) for a blogger to get the chance to work for the team they write about. So a big congrats to Bolts blogger Erin for her new job with the Lightning, even if she is a bit hesitant to share what that new job will entail.

(Note: the cheesecake above is Natalie Pandorf, who’s picture SHOULD have been posted earlier in the week.)