After a long stretch on the road, the Lightning were finally able to celebrate 1,000 games of Steven Stamkos at home Tuesday night.
There was a touching video tribute with Stamkos’s mom, a pregame commemoration with the only other player to do it in Vinny Lecavalier, players squeezing the number 1000 onto the backs of their pregame jerseys. And all of it was tied neatly into the Lightning’s thematic catchphrase of the celebration, “Seen Stamkos.”
The game was a direct contrast of all of that, of course. A ferocious playoff preview with Toronto that felt like it had as many melees as goals scored. In the end, the Bolts fell 4-3. Whatever.
Back to Seen Stamkos.
1,000 games is a lot of games. 2008, the year Stammer was drafted, was a long time ago. Tampa Bay traditions, places, and memories have come and gone, but Steven Stamkos is still here. With us. Where have we Seen Stamkos? To put it into further perspective, we put together a brief list of those places you could have, might have, hypothetically Seen Stamkos over the years.
Good times, Steven. Good times.
You could have Seen Stamkos at a Bucs game in which Josh Freeman completed a pass to Cadillac Williams
Remember when Raheem Morris was the coach of the Bucs? So does Steven Stamkos.
You could have possibly Seen Stamkos at the Judas Priest concert at the St. Pete Times Forum
Featuring an iconic three-song stretch of “The Ripper” into “Prophecy” into “Hell Patrol.”
You just may have Seen Stamkos driving his car through Water Street and Channelside with literally nothing around
That drive to the arena used to hit different.
You could have perhaps Seen Stamkos at a showing of Paul Blart: Mall Cop at the Centro Ybor 10
And then at Hamburger Mary’s after the show.
You could have Seen Stamkos chowing down at the Crazy Buffet on Dale Mabry
A great family value simply not built for a post-pandemic world.
It’s possible you’ve Seen Stamkos enjoying a cup of Beer Chili at the Spaghetti Warehouse
What? It’s possible.
You could have potentially Seen Stamkos frolicking Ribfest at Vinoy Park
Sitting by the water. Enjoying a cool breeze. Beef rib in hand. Those were the days, Steve.
You could have very well Seen Stamkos noshing on buffalo wings at the old Tate Bros. Pizza on Davis Islands
Please. We can’t type much more of this or we’ll shed a tear.
You maybe, just maybe, might have Seen Stamkos at Game 162, in which Evan Longoria’s walk-off dinger sent the Rays to the playoffs
And baseball into an impossible, parallel universe.
And lastly, you may have Seen Stamkos catching some live music at the old New World Brewery in Ybor City
Just in case Judas Priest wasn’t his thing.