You needed to only look at the banter on the bench before Vincent Lecavalier took his penalty shot on Thursday night.

You only had to feel the electricity in the building. The fans on the edge of their seat.

This was the captain going in. This was the franchise going one on one. And you damned well better have seen the reaction from the fans and the bench when he slipped it through.

If you can’t market that, you shouldn’t be in the business. If you can’t find the value in that – you shouldn’t be a player in the game of running a pro sports franchise.

The Lightning returned home tonight to face the rival Flyers and what was accomplished on ice was nothing short of the fantastic. It was the type of effort the Lightning have only shown a handful of times all season: peppering the Flyers with shots, contributions from all. 4-1 final. Check with Cassie at Boltsblog.net for the Recap.

(last updated January 16th, 2009 @ 4:12 PM EST)

Damian Cristodero at the Times reports that NHL official Stephen Walkom sees nothing wrong from last night:

Stephen Walkom, the NHL’s director of officiating, said the ruling that Lightning goaltender Mike Smith deliberately threw his stick to disrupt Milan Hejduk’s shootout attempt on Thursday was the correct call.

“It was a very tough call. It was a gutsy call. It was a call that was made in an instant, and I support the call,” Walkom said.

In a related story, Stephen Walkom is an idiot if he thinks this was a deliberate stick throwing incident:

(hat tip to Cassie at Boltsblog for getting the full video)

This is just a show of solidarity and among officials by standing by each other when one is wrong. Not just minorly, mistakenly wrong in this case, but completely batshit-crazy wrong that determines the outcome of a game without a goal being scored.

Greg Wyshynski over at AOL’s FanHouse alerted me to this, uh, video…

I’ll let Greg do the talking and then let Courtney the Hockey Fan further do the, um,talking?

I was checking news feeds from my favorite blogs and David Singer’s The Ice Block got my attention… “NHL Network Coming to America” was a compelling post title seeing people have been waiting for this forever…

Well, forever is here. Forever is now. Especially in Tampa Bay.

I haven’t checked the other local cable operators but Bright House Networks offers the NHL Network as part of their Sports Tier package ($2.99 extra) on channel 808 on digital cable boxes. Note, the station is NOT listed in the above link — but it’s there from my own surfing-the-cable-box verification. I personally don’t subscribe to the sports tier — but that may change now that the NHL network (and how long before the NFL network?) is here.

Chris at the Tourney of Logos has done a solid job all off season covering the RBK Edge change over and keeping fans involved via polls and other user-created-content requests.

At any rate, he’s got a Southeast Division concepts post that leads off with a Lightning design that I myself have sorta pondered but have never been able to pull off…. It’s a very modern design of the Lightning crest that eliminates basically all we know.

But it works. At least for me.

I won’t post it here, there is more than one concept but it’s the top one that captivates me. It’s also a little late now for a new Lightning concept but like I said, this one compelled me… Some people might hate it but it’s such a nuevo concept… Hmm

With much thanks to Chris at NHL Tournament of Logos, I’ve been made aware of a video of the logo unveiling on YouTube:

Chris also left some comments in the other thread regarding how he feels on the new jersey:

I think the new uniforms look amazing! After 15 years in the league’s most boring sweaters, we finally have something sharp to wear on our backs! The extra splash of blue has me sold. I’m filling out the pre-order form as I write this.

My own thoughts are just left with shock and awe. I have to admit I like the white jerseys more than the black which has usually been the other way around the last few years. I’ve commented that I prefer the logo on black instead of white and yet from the video — it looks better the other way around. The crest with the text is terrible though and hard for me to swallow but other elements are brought along nicely. Some people hate the new number-on-the-front trend but I don’t mind it.

Seeing a player in full gear wearing this thing may change my perception or clarify it. But right now I’m a bit lost. **shrug** Not sold but not pushed away by it.

Update I need to taper the positive and so-so comments with something negative. Lets give Tapeleg at Jerseys and Hockey Love some time on the soapbox:

After seeing the new Tampa Bay Lightning jerseys that were unveiled today, I had one thought…

“Please, don’t let the Avalanche screw up this bad.”

I just don’t get it. Do we need a modern era of hockey jerseys? When (most) any fan of the game from the 70s would tell you that it isn’t a jersey, it’s a sweater, you have to wonder if we need something that looks like a bad science fiction outfit.

I can’t say I disagree with his point. This is the truth of most of the RBK Edge designed jerseys and new logos that have been unveiled.

Lightning Strikes has a post challenging graphic designer fans to re-design the Lightning logo themselves. It gives a chance for fans — both local and international I would think — who want to show off their abilities to show some creativity in re-doing the Lightning logo.

Submission criteria (an email address) is on the post in question (I’m not posting it here in order to keep the spam at bay for them)

Just a heads up for Lightning fans in the Tampa Bay area on Bright House cable networks — Jay Feaster will be appearing tonight in the studio during the 11 PM Sports Connection telecast…

Some people think he’s an outright bad seed, others think he was the victim of character assassination by way of the St. Petersburg Times. Regardless, he’s caught the Tampa Bay regions attention and inspired Tim (from The Journey of Jack Tripper) to write and record the Elijah Dukes is my Daddy Blues.

(Hat tip to Sticks of Fire where I saw Tim’s post)

Give my regards to YouTube

Ah, The instigator… How I love thee:

As if I needed to show the masses another reason to rib the St. Pete Times and their (online, this time) coverage of the Lightning, check out the featured photo they used to summarize both Saturday night’s game and this morning’s story about Vincent Lecavalier:

(click on the image to view the full size)

Now, maybe I am being a little anal for making a thing about the Lightning using a stock photo from 2004, but with the Lightning fresh out of Calgary and Lecavalier fresh off his 46th goal of the season… Wasn’t it a little more relevant to have a recent photo (from this season) in place on the Lightning’s page at the Times?

That’s the answer to everything.

Vincent Lecavalier ties Brian Bradley for the single season goal record for a Lightning player.

You got a hockey game one night, you have a Justin Timberlake concert the next and another hockey game the next evening. Getting an NHL arena ready for it’s various functions is no small order and takes lots of manpower as well as lots of dedication.

I could talk up how big a job an arena conversion crew has all day… I’ll let the Toronto Star’s video of the Air Canada center being converted tell you everything though.

A couple of months ago, Mike Chen approached me about a contest he was running on his web site for the best worst player in the NHL — someone who was mediocre and who would be the best mediocre player in the game this year. I laughed at the idea but I’m playing along…

…yet it seems like hockey fans around the internet have taken that idea and run with it.

In a move that mimics Netroots activism in politics (rallying people online to achieve major goals), NHL fans on Hockey’s Future’s message board started a write-in campaign for Vancouver Canucks player Rory Fitzpatrick in an effort to mock the NHL’s All-Star voting system by skewering the results. Yeah, I just used some harsh phrasing to define the moment but you know what? I get a kick out of this and I’m all for it. I don’t just get a kick out of this, but I’m amazed that this movement has legs. Check out Calgary Puck, Something Awful, Lets Go Wings, TMLFans.ca and Canucks Central message forums. Myspace and Facebook social networks also have groups devoted to this Western Conference write-in campaign

And yes, this movement has it’s own website as well (sadly pathetic but it serves it’s purpose).

So whattaya say? Vote for Rory as your western conference write in vote!

Hat tip to William F. Yurasko by way of Eric at Off Wing…

Explaining the list just a bit — it’s not all hockey. I could give detailed reasonings why certain members of this list make my list but trust me — every one of these guys have quirks I’m not fond of.

Who would you put on notice, Lightning fans…?

Anyone remember Delmon Young demanding money from reporters who wished to interview him?

Oh wait, it gets better as Delmon is looking at a suspension for throwing his bat at an umpire. (view the video in the upper right hand corner of the page)

Someone needs to send this kid a message he’s gotta get himself under control.

Over on the Vancouver Canucks Op-Ed blog, they’ve started a little project (via Frappr) to try to chronicle as many online hockey fans in the world as possible.

You don’t have to be a member of Frappr to join, so please post away. And while you’re at it, why not join the Boltsmag reader map on Frappr too?

Any particular goals the Lightning have scored this season that you think should be immortalized for Lightning fans? Let me know as I’d be willing to add to the Multimedia archive on site..

I’m going to make a multimedia request here:

Lightning video clips… Where are they?

Each season a couple of clips — goals and such – make it to the web and the Lightning seems to be running short on having video clips online of goals, fights, etc in one central spot…

So..

I’m interested in trying to fill that missing piece of the multimedia puzzle by hosting media clips (or trying to – hoping and praying that bandwidth issues don’t come into play). I’m asking for submissions of clips to share with the rest of the fanbase, or perhaps just a pointer where to look for multimedia clips of Lightning action.

Just email webmaster at Boltsmag.com with your clip.