#15

Tampa Bay Lightning - St. Pete Times Forum

Location/Scene – None of us can really be considered fans of central * Florida, but the location is fine, right in “downtown” Tampa. The usual nice weather means there are probably always a good amount of people hanging around the rink. There were a few exhibits/stands set up around the entrance. More importantly, across the street is Andreychuk’s, which is possibly the best hockey/pregame bar we’ve been to yet. Nice time there.

Outside Appearance – This place is massive looking from the outside. Tons of clean lines and glass make it a very appealing exterior. Simple, but very attractive.

Inner Aesthetics – One of the easiest ways to please us in terms of the seating bowl of a rink is to make the damn seats match the arena and team colors. This is especially true if the hockey team is the lone/major tenant. SPTF gets this right; the seats look great and make an otherwise cavernous and boring interior look great. Still, the place is giant and you definitely feel like you’re a mile from the ice when you’re up top. The rest of the layout is nice, as is the scoreboard.

Concourse – Bland. Another instance where if we’d come here just having experienced NVMC and MSG in our lives, this would be a palace. But there isn’t much to distinguish it, give it a local flair, or attract your attention. Strangely, the font used on the exterior section markers is tiny and hard to read.

Sightlines – Very good for a big rink, which usually means very vertical. We had pretty poor seats and yet the view was as good as a lot of other, smaller rinks. A good hockey-watching venue

Bathrooms – The only thing worth a comment is that there were a ton of them. Has to be a good thing, right?

Concessions – Good quality, selection, and price; but poor in terms of interesting or unique items.

Fans/Atmosphere – Quite good, as is usually described. The building gets quite loud and the fans don’t need stupid prodding to get into the game. Not afraid to voice their displeasure (appropriately) either. Yet another in what will be a trend of very, very good crowds and savvy fans in non-traditional areas.

History/Banners - The banners are absolutely awesome. Beyond that there is very little honoring their history. Obviously, they were bad for so long but they had some players the fans liked. Brian Bradley, Darren Puppa, John Cullen. Put freaking pictures of them up or something. Represent.

Cool Stuff – Not much, which is made worse by the fact that there’s plenty of room for it here. Probably two times more interesting stuff outside of the building than in it.

Bars – Actually quite a few places to get cocktails, which is great for us. A few larger spots with seating.

Store – Another rink with a lot of stands cluttering up the concourse that offer a whole lot of nothing. Between the two visits we can’t remember anything cool or worth buying (again- that is saying something for this group). CC remains appalled at the lack of player t-shirts here. Note to NHL teams: after you load up on pink jerseys and rally monkeys and 70 dollar hoodies, go ahead and stock some non-superstar name and number shirts. We will buy them.

Value – The upper tickets were very cheap. Probably a big reason they draw so consistently well. Nothing else stood out as crazy one way or the other.

Overall – Can’t put it much better than CC did after his 2nd (solo) visit here: Positives include the awesome blue seats, a nice scoreboard, pretty solid fans, reasonable tickets and food, plentiful bathrooms, good sightlines (though it is massive), and the great pavilion out front highlighted by the lightning bolts. On the negative side the place is pretty bland. Absolutely no bells and whistles. Not one food item that approaches unique. Their hallways are boring. A middle of the pack building as it is now.

* The state of