The success of Tampa Bay's hockey team is winning fans - and pulling kids off the beach and into the rink.
By TOM ZUCCO
Published May 7, 2004
[Times photos: Bob Croslin ]
Brandon Wizikowski, Dylan Malone, Grant Wellinger, Robbie Middleton and Brandon Brooks line up for drills at SunBlades Ice Skating Center in Clearwater. More and more area children are taking up hockey. "When the Lighting do well, we do well," says Jacob Brozyna, SunBlades' youth hockey director.
Brandon Brooks works on passing skills while Robbie Wellinger pursues during hockey practice at SunBlades Ice Skating Center.
Quin Pickrum, 4, is encouraged by coach Gary Lucke at SunBlades Ice Skating Center. Quin has been skating a few weeks.
CLEARWATER - It's not just that they want to be the next Martin St. Louis. It's more complicated than that.
They pronounce his name perfectly (Mar-TAN San-loo-EE). And know he plays right wing. And that he wears No. 26, was born in Quebec and has a good chance of winning the league's most valuable player award.
All at 7 and 8 years old.
"And he's like me ... not very big," said Sean O'Brien, 8, as he tugged his jersey over his pads before Junior Lightning practice last week at SunBlades Ice Skating Center. Moments later, as precious ice time was melting away, his mother, Michelle, stooped down and laced up his skates.
"He lays all his equipment out on his bed the night before," she said as her son wobbled onto the ice. "All he wants to do is skate."
He's not alone. Children whose only experience with ice was the cubes floating in their Kool-Aid are discovering a game that by all rights shouldn't exist in Florida.
And they're coming indoors because of the lightning. Or rather, the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Since the team started winning big and in bunches this season, since it stopped being referred to as the Deadbolts, increasing numbers of children have been showing up at area hockey rinks to learn the game.
"There's definitely been a buzz around here, and we're up a good number of kids," said Jacob Brozyna, SunBlades' youth hockey director. "I had one kid the other day who quit soccer to take up hockey.
"When the Lightning do well, we do well."
The Lightning played its first game Oct. 7, 1992, at Expo Hall inside the Florida State Fairgrounds, a 7-3 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks.
But SunBlades is where the Lightning held its first practice. Opened in 1986, it's also one of the first ice hockey rinks built in the state.
The rink has always had a core of kids who play hockey - mostly because their fathers played it as kids somewhere up north. But recently, there are squads of new kids on the rink, some of whom mastered walking not that long ago.
"We have 2-year-olds who know how to say Lecavalier and Khabibulin," said Karen Michaels, public relations director at SunBlades.
Glyn Jones, rink manager at Tampa Bay Skating Academy in Oldsmar, said he has seen about a 10 percent increase in children signing up for youth hockey, largely because of the Lightning's success.
The numbers are also up at Ice Sports Forum in Brandon, a facility the Lightning occasionally use as a practice site.
"We're having a lot more walk-ins, a lot of interest in general, and parents say their kids are all excited about the Lightning," said Chris Wheat, assistant general manager. "And our adult programs are doing better, too.
Conventional thinking would hold that ice hockey is to Florida what beach volleyball is to Saskatchewan.
But put a winning team on the ice, market it well, and the playing field - or rink - suddenly becomes level.
"It's no surprise you'll see growth in youth hockey when the local pro teams do well," said David Cole, director of fan development for the Lightning. "That's probably universal. But a lot of things we've put into place allow that to happen."
The team sponsors tournaments and hosts hundreds of events each year, including free hockey clinics. Team representatives also visit schools. "We'll see 500-700 kids a day," Cole said. "That's important exposure."
Other than last season, when the team also made the playoffs, the last time the Lightning created this much excitement was in the 1995-96 season when the team made its first playoff appearance and twice beat the Philadelphia Flyers before eventually losing the series. Back then, there was also a spike in interest among kids. And many of them are still playing the game.
"Florida is producing some pretty good young hockey players," Cole said. "More than people think. There are about 10 kids playing Division I hockey who are from Florida.
"We're starting to be a presence nationally."
But there is a long way to go. Ice hockey is not a sanctioned sport on the high school level in Florida, although several colleges, including the University of South Florida, Florida State University and the University of Florida, have club ice hockey teams.
"The biggest issue is cost," Cole said. "It's an expensive sport. Anybody who doesn't acknowledge that is fooling themselves. Ice time alone is three times more expensive than in northern states because of the heat and humidity.
"And then there's knowledge of the game. Most PE programs in the schools don't have a hockey unit. It's soccer or basketball or something else. That's why we go to the schools and run the youth league programs."
What trumps the drawbacks, Cole said, is winning.
"Everybody loves a winner. And kids love hockey because it's an easy game for them to enjoy. You've got speed, you don't have many stoppages of play, it's physical, and it involves great skill."
In 1992, when the Lightning began its first season, the state had about six ice hockey rinks. Now there are at least 16.
Frank Scarpaci, director of the youth hockey program at J.P. Igloo Ice and Inline Sports Complex in Ellenton, grew up in Boston. When he was a kid, he wanted to be just like Bruins star Bobby Orr.
He's seeing the same thing now with the kids who find their way to his rink. But instead of Orr, it's Lecavalier, St. Louis or Khabibulin.
"It's infectious," he said. "We've seen about a 15 percent increase in the last month or two. They all know who Lecavalier and Richards are, who St. Louis is, and they all say they want to be like them.
"And I tell them all the same thing. "When those guys were 6, 7 and 8, they were just like you.'
Bolts: 
