TAMPA - The Lightning players have a rule. A silly rule, but it's their locker room, so they have the right to make whatever rules they want.
No one - players, media, coaches, equipment guys - is allowed to step on the team emblem that is sewn in the carpet in the middle of the locker room. The Montreal media had to get used to that Friday morning. That's because people are allowed to step on the emblem in Montreal, but what do those goofy Canadiens know? They've only won 24 Stanley Cups.
Other teams, including a few others that have names on the Cup, throw laundry in baskets set up on top of their emblems.
But not the Lightning, who treat the bolt of lightning like it came from King Tut's tomb. Come to think of it, if the emblem is so precious, why is it not on the ceiling instead of the floor?
Anyway, the point is someone is going to step on the emblem during this series. It's simple math. The Lightning locker room is only so big, and the media crush is bigger than ever.
In fact, Friday might have been the biggest day in the history of the Lightning. Never before has this much media paid this much attention to the Lightning.
That's partly because the Lightning is playing the Canadiens, hockey's version of the Rolling Stones. But the Lightning getting to the second round of the playoffs for the second time has brought more microphones, cameras and notebooks than ever before.
Though there's no official record, it is believed more media attended Friday's game than any Lightning home game. More than the first game in 1992. More than when Manon Rheaume became the first woman to play in an exhibition game. More than any playoff game.
A normal Lightning game during the regular season has reporters from St. Petersburg and Tampa, a few more from cities such as Lakeland, Sarasota and Bradenton and a reporter or two from the opponent. Mix in maybe three or four television and radio stations, and it's not unusual for coach John Tortorella to address no more than a dozen reporters after the game.
Get this: The Lightning issued 300 media credentials for Friday. Most are television tech people, but also there are 34 reporters from Montreal newspaper, radio and television outlets. Other Canadian papers have sent reporters. ESPN is here. And so are the Canadian big three: RDS (the French station), TSN and CBC, which is doing the game for the legendary Hockey Night in Canada.
For the Lightning, this is like the Super Bowl. For the Canadiens?
"It's normal for us every game," Montreal's Mike Ribeiro said. "We're used to it. It's kind of fun."
Fun isn't the word the Lightning might use, but it will deal with it.
"No matter how many people are around, what they're saying, what they're doing, we're just concerned with what's going on within the walls of that locker room," Tortorella said.
"The players understand that whether we're here or in Montreal."
Oh yeah, Montreal. The spotlight will burn even brighter there.
"More people cover practices up there than games anywhere else," Montreal's Jim Dowd said. "It's wild, man. Some days, you can't even move in the locker room."
Well, at least there you can step on the emblem.
- On the Fly focuses on people, scenes and events around the game.
