As the scoreboard clock at Rogers Place (and your TV) read 0:00 for this moment 2020 isn’t so bad is it? You found yourself as a reflection of that never say die team that normally resides in Channelside aka Vinikville.
Just like you and me, your Tampa Bay Lightning has dealing with adversity and challenges brought on by this pandemic and thrust them all aside and skated around Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta, albeit not around a deafening Amalie Arena, with Lord Stanley hoisted above head.
For the first time in 16 years your Tampa Bay Lightning are Stanley Cup Champions!!!! We’re pretty sure they heard the distant thunder roar of a region 2,812 miles away.
Name the obstacle and the Lightning overcame.
Stop our season and shut down our league in March? Ok?
Start playing nearly five months later amid a historic pandemic? No problem.
Play games and stay in a bubble in Toronto away from family and friends and the confines of home? Sure, no sweat.
Throw Columbus at them to remove last season’s sting? See ya Torts, thanks for 2004, but we’re better now. Boston, Marchand et al? Scram pest.
Then send them across an entire country and play an upstart team (while still playing without Stammer), we got this!
Then, hey play the Stanley Cup Finals against a physical team that takes no prisoners, and smash the glass skate that the Khudobin was wearing? -Uh, yeah, please mission accomplished!!!!
Your 2019-2020 Tampa Bay Lightning will have their names etched on sport’s most legendary and iconic trophy, and nothing, not even a pandemic, got in their way.
Here’s hoping the next time they skate with Stanley hoisted above head - it is next Summer under the charged Tesla Coils at Amalie with Stammer fresh off a Conn Smythe performance leading the parade. I mean come on, what else are you gonna throw at this team that 2020 couldn’t? #BeTheDistantThunder #GoBolts #StanleysGettingATan #TampaBayLightning #StanleyCupChampions