Lightning Crashes: Washington vs Tampa Bay

So about a MONTH ago, I went to a game in Tampa Bay. My friend Sandy and I put her kids in the van and headed down to the Sunshine State for some hockey. I’m always up for going to another barn. When that barn is in Florida, that is always a plus. Tampa Bay was taking on the Washington Capitals. I was excited about seeing some of their superstars as well. It’s been horrible going from seeing super stars several times a week with 41+ games to seeing super stars several times a SEASON.

The Tampa Bay Times Forum is amazing. It’s by the water and they have a large court yard where they have activities for fans before they go into the arena. They have merchandise out as well. Tampa Bay’s merchandise was the highest priced stuff I’ve seen yet. I ended up waiting and getting a Stamkos shirt from Walmart.



Warm ups


This lovely lady is quite smitten with Marty. Maybe she has 15 minutes and wants him to save her some money on car insurance.



You can see Hedman's large port wine birthmark here. I think it's kind of cool because it actually looks like a lightning bolt.



Captain Vinny



Victor Hedman



Stammer time! Stephan Stamkos, the goal leader in the NHL at the moment.



Swarm the Rollie.



Rollie making sure there are not pucks left.



Tampa Bay's building and fan experience is pretty cool. This is their pipe organ.



Druing the national anthem, they pass a giant flag around.



Can't argue with the cup!



And then there is this...REAL LIGHTNING! At the beginning of the game, when they score and for the 3 Stars of the Game, they fire up the Tesla coils and there is real lightning. Very cool!



On to the game

St. Louis peeks around Mike Green.

This disgusting prick. Tampa Bay Forum does NOT sell sunflower seeds. I guess this guy can't live without them because he brought his own. Then, he proceeded so spit the hulls all over the floor. Classy.

I'm not sure what Green did, but Ryan Malone went batshit crazy over him. He had crazy eyes and clearly wanted to remove his head from his body.

It's a team of St. Louis!



Um okay. Always good to see a Thrashers jersey, just a little unexpected.



Another cool thing in Tampa Bay, they have a zamboni that several fans get to ride!



Action in front of Garon.



That's one damn sexy face off!



Ryan Malone hanging out in front of the crease.



Tampa Bay has douche bags, too. I swear the mobile phone is a great invention of convenience and safety, but it's turned us into a society of douche bags.



Semin is known for diving, usually not in his team's crease.



Laich cruising around.



Tampa Bay don't play around with their version of Cotton Eye Joe.



They have a real fiddle player come down and play it!



The Bolts try and get another goal. Not to worry though, Tampa Bay wins!



How cool is this? On game night, Sun Trust bank shows Bolt support.

Blues Christmas: Atlanta vs St. Louis

The St. Louis Blues came to town on the Tuesday before Christmas hoping to make everyone Blue. They succeeded.


I should have known it was going to be a bad night when I realized that Nik Antropov was having a bad hair day.



Not even Sopes new haircut could help. (Me likey by the way)



Toby staring at my "Merry Christmas Thrashers" sign. He's probably making sure his name was on the list Santa is holding.



Yes Bryan, you are on Santa's "nice" list.



Again, Nik with the hair! His wings are usually so well coiffed.



Brent is on Santa's "nice" list, too.



Anthony, I felt the same way after the game.



Dustin waiting to take some shots.



Swarming the goalie. Ondrej was so good this year he was on Santa's "nice" list TWICE..ooops. I left off Ron Hainsey. Ron was good! Don't worry Ron, I added you on there.



This is becoming a routine. After they swarm the goalie and most of the guys leave, Burmistrov lines up a few pucks to the left of the goal and takes some shots.



Brent trying to that nasty Backes out of the way.



He's "Backes" in the way and apparently doing some kind of dance.



Unleash the Buff!



Pevs hoping to get a pass from Buff.



Work for it Buff!



Modin hustles in front of the net. Meanwhile behind the net, Jackman jacks up Timmy.



Mason keeping an eye on the puck.



Conks making a nice stop.



Mason hugging the post. Notice the new white pads. They were like blinding white.



Apparently Mason nor his shiny new pads were any match for the Blues, Blues win 4-2. Maybe the Blues knew their old buddy Mason was weak on his glove side.

Welcome back to Blue Land!

The sucking continues. Don't let fluke wins against a real team like Vancouver fool you. We still stuck! 4-1 Tampa Bay? Are you kidding me? Hell, they were like 10 seconds from PsyDuck Goalie Mike Smith getting a shut out, too.

Sometimes, sucking isn't enough to make a game miserable, so we had to throw in an injury. Not just any injury either! Oh no, let's make sure it really suck and have our one bright spot get injured. Bryan Little, Mr. tied-for-7th-place-for goals-scored-in-the-NHL left the game with a rib contusion.

Once it became clear winning wasn't an option we were hoping that one of two things would happen and entertain us:

1. Artyukhin and Bobo would fight. They almost got into it a few times and were chirping. Bobo has 2 inches on Arty, but Arty has 20lbs on Bobo. I would love to see that battle.
2. Someone would piss off Mike Smith and he'd lose his mind and go nuts in the goal.

No such luck on either count.

Hockey FAIL!

For the first time ever, I went to the opposing side during warm-ups for someone other than a goalie! Shocking I know. I had to see Ryan Malone. He's so freaking hot and all tatt'ed up. SMOKING hot. I like Vinny (Lecavalier not Prospal) too so I enjoyed that as well.

Welcome to the Ryan and Vinny show!

Stretch it baby.



How funny is this sign?? According to the guy who made it, it pissed the midget off and made his team mates laugh. Great, it pissed him off enough to score twice. BTW...5'9'' my ass.



Hotness




Hi, I'm little baby Stampkos. I kinda forgot he was out there.





My obligatory Moose shot. He's looking at me. I can tell he's thinking "Is that my girl over there? What is she doing over there?" Sometimes I have to make him a little jealous so he appreciates me.

And for all you fellow BoBo lovers, I had to include at least one pic of him, even if not that good. It sucks because he got a haircut and I didn't get any good close-ups of it :(

Jeez, is that chick still taking pictures of me?

Cue the porno music!!

I've got a few "Malone-isms" I could teach him.

"I'm so glad Barry Melrose is gone." Is 91 the amount of time they have to change his diapers per game?

Um Um good.

Crash!

I think he looked better in a Pens jersey, but still hot. He actually looks really hot with NO jersey and tatts blazing.

GO Bobo! Fight! At least that would have been cool. What was NOT cool is the way Arty outskated you and made you look like a chump. That big Russian boy moves like a ballerina out there.

Ants playing hockey. Malone looks like he is figure skating.

"Look at me, I am a champion. Come into my crease and I will destroy you."

Ants...hockey

By far the most entertaining thing of the night...MASCOT HOCKEY! It was our mascot Thrash's birthday and all the mascots from various local teams, restaurants and any other bum in a fluffy suit showed up to wish him Happy Birthday. I lose my shit over mascots so I was super excited. FYI, that giant turd looking thing is Carvel's Fudgy the Whale.

Good times

Big Red from the Falcons playing goalie. Can we draft him? How is his groin. Can he sign one of those quick contracts like Leonhardt did?

Face off

Action. Tampa Bay making us look like even more of a joke.

Another Ryan Malone shots because really...can you ever have enough?

Two Russians and a Malone

More of this please! Mike Smith is just wishing someone would hit him.