My husband just told me that Brad Richards, Tampa Bay Lighting center, was traded to the Dallas Stars this morning. Brad was a great supporter of people in the Tampa Bay area, and an all around nice guy. How do I know? Well, we met him in 2005, and he was genuinely interested in speaking to my son about hockey, and I appreciate that. In an era when we consistently hear about baseball players abusing drugs, and football players raising dogs for fights, or beating their wives, it’s nice to have nice guys involved in sports, and guys who play hockey are as nice as they come. (Ignore the fighting on the ice - I’m talking about when they’re off the ice!)

Could it be true? Could Sunday’s game have been the last for Tony Dungy as the coach of the Indianapolis Colts? I can’t think of another coach who has been as loved in Tampa Bay as Tony Dungy was, and still is. When it was announced that Dungy had enrolled his children in Hillsborough County schools this week, it seemed like a decision had been made, despite Dungy’s contract for the Colts extending into 2009.

Come on back Tony, Tampa loves you! (Can we trade Dungy for Gruden?)

With stories about sports stars running dog fighting rings, and other beating their wives, or just being, in general, not “nice guys”, it’s absolutely fabulous that we have a “nice guy” like Vincent Lecavalier to look up to here in Tampa Bay. Actually, I’ve met several of the Tampa Bay Lightning players, and they’re all nice guys. It seems that hockey, as a sport, has more nice guys than other sports, and Vinnie is a gem.

Vinnie’s charity foundation, along with his corporate partners (Kane’s Furniture and DEX Imaging), has announced they’ll be donating $3 million towards the construction of the new building for All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg. I have a huge soft spot in my heart for All Children’s - I’ve not only been there with 2 of my own children, but my niece was there when she was just 1 for a long illness. This isn’t the first time that Vinnie Lecavalier has helped the hospital. With each goal he scores, he donates $1,000. With each assist, he donates $300. Since he started doing that in 2003, he’s donated over $70,000 to All Children’s.

The $3 million dollar gift will go towards creating a special wing called the Vincent Lecavalier Pediatric Cancer and Blood Disorders Center. The corporate sponsors will provide half of the money, and the rest will be raised through events held by Vinnie’s foundation, like his poker tournament in Tampa on November 12.

My son and I had the opportunity to attend a Tampa Bay Lightning game this week, and we had amazing seats, just 6 rows behind the Lightning bench. I blogged about our night out on Simple Kind Of Life, complete with pictures and a video of our experience. Sadly, my favorite Lightning player, Brad Richards, wasn’t playing. He did an interview during one of the intermissions though, so I did get to see him on the big screen. And another favorite of ours, Dan Boyle, suffered a locker room injury after the game, so it looks like he’ll be sitting a few games out. His skates fell down in his locker and sliced a tendon on his arm!

My husband had the good fortune last week to run into several Tampa Bay Lighting players at one of our local ice rinks. He didn’t recognize them at first on the ice, but thought they were better and bigger than the average dad who comes out to play hockey on a weekday. Once they took off their helmets, he realized he was in the presence of Vinny, Brad, Marty and Dan.

Just another day in Tampa Bay…

Lighting hockey starts training camp on September 13th, and the first regular season game will be October 4th against the New Jersey Devils. That means it’s only a matter of time before my husband will be using his season tickets again - in fact, I think he’ll be at that game! He’s so excited about seeing the team on the ice again. No word on if he’ll be taking our son to any games yet. The little guy doesn’t like the nosebleed seats we have - they’re too high up for him!

Football is back! It was about this time of year, 10 years ago, when my husband and I attended a pre-season game at Raymond James. I was pregnant, and it was MISERABLE outside. I heard rumors of it being 115 on the field. Sitting in the bleachers at the game with the sun beating down on us (it was a 1pm game) made for an awful day.

Since then, I’ve made sure that the football games I attend are:

• At night
• Or take place in the winter

Along with new owners, the Tampa Bay Lightning have a new look! Actually, it doesn’t look that new. Color me unimpressed! I was happy with the look of the old jerseys, and don’t see why they needed to be updated. The old Lightning logo looked like this:

And the new jersey looks like this:

So, a different font, they removed the word “Lighting” from the bottom of the logo, they changed the shading on the lightning bolt. The font was changed to make it more readable from the ice, but if you’re AT the game, do you really read the logo font? Chances are, you already know the team you’re there to cheer for. The team is calling this a “modernization” of the old logo, but it looks like amateur hour to me.

Rumor has it that Mike Alstott of the Tampa Bay Bucs was going to be announcing his retirement today. Instead, he announced he’d be sitting this season out due to an injury. I’m definitely surprised that it wasn’t a retirement announcement. Early in his career with the Bucs, all we heard about was Mike Alstott. He was one of the greats, like John Lynch, Warren Sapp, and Warrick Dunn. The last of Mike’s 100 yard games was in 2002, and we haven’t seen much of Mike on the field recently, so I think his retirement is coming soon.

I just posted some potentially troubling news for Tampa Bay Lightning fans in the area on my other blog. We’ve grown to love hockey and the team, and the players (mm….Brad and Vinnie) and we’ll be crushed of the new owners of the Tampa Bay Lighting move the team. Stay tuned!

First it was John Lynch, and then Sapp. Now Simeon Rice is gone. Pfft. Apparently Gruden has no heart, and thinks nothing of cutting the heart and soul out of the Bucs. We can’t win games, so Gruden’s solution is to cut the people who have done a great job for the Bucs all along, and pay rookies who haven’t proved themselves yet crazy sums of money.

Lots of luck Chuckie. You’re wearing thin on Tampa Bay fans.

We are HUGE hockey fans.

Jim has season tickets to see the Lighting play, and both Jim and our son play hockey on a team. I’ve sat a many a game and wondered if my son could be the next Brad Richards! We were so proud when the Tampa Bay Lighting won the Stanley Cup - is it any wonder that the highlight of our trip to Toronto in June included a trip to the Hockey Hall of Fame?

I found a neat hockey website I’ll be emailing to Jim today. Even though there aren’t any games going on right now, there’s still an NHL draft to be excited about! The site includes a draft review for each of the teams - I found a great article on my Lightning playing it cool during the draft, and another reviewing the performance of our rookies. The site is getting me all fired up for another season!

Let’s go Lightning!

If you’re a fan of the Tampa Bay Storm (arena football), stop by the Green Iguana in St. Petersburg this Sunday afternoon at 4pm for a fan party! The team will be in Texas to play the Austin Wranglers. Wear Storm clothing and get a discount, and there will be raffles - and inactive players and the dancers will be there! I personally love the Green Iguana, and this is a really neat way to meet players and win some cool stuff in a cool place!

The Rays handed out spankings this week to the Yankees, twice in a row! Now, I’m not a baseball fan by any means, but I like to have a winning team in town. And I really like it when my team can beat a team like the Yankees!

If you’ve never been to a game, as a non fan, Tropicana Field is a nice place to spend an evening. It’s indoors, so you won’t sweat, and there’s a variety of dining choices (mm…Outback!), as well as entertainment on the field between innings.

We travel to Oldsmar once a week for my son to take ice hockey lessons. We’ve heard rumors that the guy who owns the pro shop at the rink is interested in building an ice hockey center in Land O’ Lakes. I certainly hope he does - I know of a lot of parents who can’t get to Oldsmar because it’s kind of far for them, and having a rink in Land O’ Lakes would open up figure skating and ice hockey to a lot of kids in North Tampa and Wesley Chapel.

If you’re a Tampa Bay Bucs fan, head on over to The Smoothie King this Saturday, 4/14/07 from 12pm til 6pm to meet players in person and get free autographs! The Smoothie King is located at 2541 N. Dale Mabry Highway in Tampa, and is owned by Melissa Pittman, Michael Pittman’s (#32) wife.

When you buy a 32 ounce smoothie, you get a free autograph on one item that you bring with you. There is no limit to the # of players that can sign your item. Some of the players that will be throughout the day are: Michael Pittman #32, Michael Clayton #80, Chris Hovan #95, Chris Simms #2, Ellis Wyms #96, Maurice Stovall #85, Ryan Nece #56, Shelton Quarles #53, Matt Bryant #3, Greg Spires #94, Juran Bolden #21, Jon Bradley #98, Earnest Graham #34, Carnell “Cadillac” Williams #24, John Wade #76, Anthony Davis #69, Donte Nicholson #30, and former Bucs player Dexter Jackson #28.

The Lightning made for a great show this week against the Ottawa Senators and it paid off with a win! Ruslan Fedotenko and Vincent Lecavalier were the stars of the show. My husband has tickets to the Lightning/Rangers game tomorrow night, but he’s got to work so we’re giving them to a neighbor.

My husband went to Chicago this weekend with a friend, and his friend was able to score tickets to the Bears/Bucs games. I’m sure it was exciting to sit out on Soldier Field and see the game, despite the Bucs losing. Again. We had our moments, and a few touchdowns, but in the end, it wasn’t enough.

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