I’m typing this exhausted. Burnt out. Completely washed.
It’s not the euphoric kind of exhaustion Bolts fans have become accustomed to over the past three years. The kind of dumb glaze that can only come after a dozen “Vasy” chants, a few high fives with strangers and a ruthless consumption of stadium food.
But it’s a proud one.
The Lightning offices are closed today for a day of much needed rest. As a media extension of VSG, we’re a small part of that. But we wanted to send one more note out to Bolts Nation anyway. One last toast, if you will. One last enormous, 25-oz beer from the rafters where our coveted banners hang.
I’ve been a Lightning fan for as long as I can remember. I don’t pretend to know the game as well as Eduardo Encina at The Tampa Bay Times, or Chris Krenn with TBL, or even folks like Andrew Weiss on Twitter. But I do know—in an admittedly longshot attempt at an unbiased opinion—that these are some of the greatest fans in sports. In my learned experience, bearing down for three straight Stanley Cup Final runs of playoff hockey is roughly the equivalent to lighting your hair on fire and jumping on the back of Tom Cruise’s F/A-18. And yet here we are, blood pressure be damned, riding the longest sellout streak in the NHL.
There will be fans who feel disappointed—somehow let down by this year’s team. Sports can do weird things like that to people sometimes. I won’t be one of them. Watching the Thunder stick around as the Avalanche began their penultimate celly was one of the richest memories I’ll carry from Amalie Arena. The “Let’s Go Lightning” chants as the boys hoisted their sticks one last time will ring in my head for some time.
The players’ wives and families will finally get their vacations a game early. But don’t expect future summers to be robbed of Bolts hockey just yet.
“Who says we’re done, right?” Steven Stamkos added after the game. “This core is here. We’ve battled. We’ve been through everything you could think of, and for the most part, we found a way to come out on top, so it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
We’ll be ready to do it all over again every single time. And to that we offer a sincere acknowledgement.
I’m going to go have a glass of water now.
—Thompson Brandes, Editor