TAMPA — They've come a long way, these Tampa Bay Lightning. They've been through Thicke and thin — mostly thin. They've gone from playing in a barn to playing in a palace — er, Forum. And most importantly, they've graduated from Dukes to Lords.
Not sure what we're talking about? Hang in there. We're about to explain it all — the whole wacky, wonderful dozen years of Lightning history. Strap yourselves in, folks. This trip back through time figures to be rather bumpy.
It will be fun, too. But more often than not it will be bumpy. Or sloshy. After all, in the beginning these Lightning couldn't make ice freeze. Their founders couldn't, anyway.
Remember that? Lightning founding father Phil Esposito had seemingly done the incredible. He had somehow talked Wayne Gretzky's Los Angeles Kings and Mario Lemieux's Pittsburgh Penguins into playing an exhibition game on a portable ice rink in a barren baseball stadium in St. Petersburg.
Better yet, he had sold more than 25,000 tickets for the event, thus proving to the National Hockey League that a hockey team in Florida could draw fans, make money and possibly even succeed.
There was only one problem: The portable rink didn't work. A malfunctioning cooling system left puddles of water all over the ice surface and forced a 10-minute delay late in the game.
Other than that, the event was a hit. And it did exactly what it was intended to do, which was give the NHL the confidence it needed to strongly consider Tampa Bay as an expansion site.
In fact, Tampa Bay proved to be such a viable expansion site that two groups, including one headed by former NHL goalie Jim Rutherford and backed by computer software magnate Peter Karmanos, sought to bring a team here.
In the end, Esposito's group won out, mostly because Esposito and his train of mostly Japanese-based investors didn't balk at paying the league's $50 million franchise fee on the league's terms.
A Difficult Birth
Little did the league know then that the Lightning would have difficulty keeping their word. Internal squabbles about control of the franchise kept the Lightning from paying the first installment on their franchise fee.
It also led to the introduction of what was clearly the most bizarre character in Lightning history: Angus Charles Drogo Montagu, the 12th Duke of Manchester.
Montagu was indeed a member of British nobility. And he really did have a $380 million trust fund, a small chunk of which he had agreed to turn over to the Lightning in an effort to make them financiaily solvent.
Only problem was, Montagu didn't have access to all the millions he wanted to give to the Lightning. The Lightning didn't find that out, though, until long after they'd spent about $21,000 wining and dining him.
Several years later, Montagu and his ''business” partner, Carroll Tessier, were convicted of fraud, with Montagu eventually spending 33 months in jail for his part in the scheme.
By the time Montagu got out of jail in 1996, the Lightning had established themselves, albeit briefly, as one of the franchise's best teams. They still didn't have a permanent home of their own, though.
That didn't come until the start of the 1996-97 season. Until then, the Lightning were nomads, playing home games in Orlando, St. Petersburg and, during their first year, a “barn” that was so small they had to park the Zamboni outside.
The Lightning's “barn” was officially known as Florida Expo Hall, which could be found just behind the cotton candy kiosks and livestock exhibits at the Florida State Fairgrounds.
If you looked hard enough you could find hay on the floor at Expo Hall, and if you breathed in deep on a warm day there you could detect evidence of elephant travel.
And why not? Expo Hall was, after all, the place where the elephants were housed when the circus came to town.
‘I'd Put Skates On A Horse'
There were times during that first season when it was hard to tell the Lightning from the circus.
Certainly, that was the case Sept. 23, 1992. That's the day goaltender Manon Rheaume made her NHL debut, allowing two goals and stopping seven shots in an exhibition game against the St. Louis Blues.
Esposito, who has always had a little P.T. Barnum in him, brought Rheaume to the Lightning's first training camp. He swore it wasn't a publicity stunt, but his comments said otherwise.
“I'm telling you, I'd put skates on a horse and put it out there if I thought it could stop pucks,” Esposito said.
Ah, Phil. He's one of a kind. And on opening night, so was Chris Kontos. In the Lightning's inaugural regular-season game, Kontos scored four goals to lead Tampa Bay to a 7-3 victory against the Chicago Blackhawks.
The victory capped a night of celebration that started with a 30-minute pregame show hosted by none other than Canadian-born comic actor Alan Thicke. Word was, Slappy White had a prior commitment.
Despite the host and the fact that a fan was kicked out of the building for throwing a hat on the ice to celebrate Kontos' hat trick, the night went off without a hitch.
If only the rest of the season could have gone as well. The Lightning in their first season earned respect for their effort but won just 23 games while losing 54 and tying seven.
It was a portent of things to come. With players such as Chris Lipuma, Jack Collander, Jim Cummins and Jason Lafrenier, it took until 1996 for the Lightning to make the playoffs for the first time.
It was Tampa Bay's first case of Cup fever, and sensing perhaps that it would be another six years before they contracted their next case, Lightning fans went Cup Crazy.
They came out in record numbers, squeezing 25,945 into what was then known as the ThunderDome for Game 3 against the Flyers. An overtime goal by Alexander Selivanov sent the crowd home happy, but they wouldn't stay that way.
Without goaltender Daren Puppa, a Vezina Trophy candidate, the Lightning succumbed to the mighty Flyers in six games. A year later, they lost another battle to the Flyers, and in the process they lost some of their dignity.
Lost in the battle was former first-round draft pick Chris Gratton, a 30-goal scorer in 1996-97 who had signed a free-agent offer sheet with the Flyers.
Hoping to kill the deal, the Lightning first claimed they had traded Gratton to Chicago before the offer to Gratton was made. Then they tried suggesting the offer to Gratton was void because it arrived in Tampa via an illegible fax.
Not surprisingly, the NHL ruled in favor of the Flyers, and in the interim the Lightning began a five-season tailspin in which they won just 106 of their next 410 games.
‘Are You A Stud Or A Dud?'
Along the way, the Lightning changed coaches three times and changed hands twice, the franchise eventually landing in the hands of tight-fisted — at least in terms of the Lightning — Bill Davidson.
A die-hard basketball fan who seems more interested in watching his NBA's Detroit Pistons, Davidson has proven to be nearly as invisible as the Lightning's first owner, Takashi Okubo.
A mysterious Japanese businessman who reportedly had ties to the Japanese mob, Okubo never showed up for a single Lightning game. “I never saw the man,” Esposito said recently.
Art Williams Jr., the Lightning's second owner, was not only seen regularly at Lightning games, but also was heard — often. It was not unusual for him to address the players before and sometimes even during games.
His most commonly asked question: “Are you a stud or a dud?”
And while Williams made his millions selling term life insurance policies, he will best be known in these parts for predicting on draft day 1998 that center Vincent Lecavalier would become the Michael Jordan of hockey.
Lecavalier has yet to make Williams look like a prophet. In fact, Martin St. Louis, who former General Manager Rick Dudley pulled out of a Calgary trash pile, has become the face of the franchise.
Together, though, St. Louis, Lecavalier, Jay Feaster, John Tortorella, Nikolai Khabibulin, Dave Andreychuk and others have helped changed the way the Lightning are perceived.
No longer is a laugh track needed to accompany every move this team makes. The Lightning are on the cusp of grabbing Lord Stanley's Cup and taking a swig of champagne from it.
In just a dozen years, they have indeed come a long way.