I have NOT been to the Trop (will not watch baseball indoors)
my fondest memory of the Trop nee ThunderDome: April 21, 1996 - Game 3 of the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, Bolts v. Flyers
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/05/05/Lightning/Six_Days.shtmlOn a Sunday afternoon, Tampa Bay, (Florida!) became Hockeytown. A crowd of 25,945 - the most ever to watch an NHL game - shouldered their way into what is now Tropicana Field.
"It was almost like a Bucs game," Zamuner said. "There were signs everywhere, you couldn't even see the crowd."
Even the Flyers were impressed. Then and now.
"What was it called (then)? The ThunderDome?" Lindros said. "It was incredible. It really was. That's a huge number of people, just enormous. In hockey, you think of (Joe Louis Arena in Detroit), which is a little over 20 grand. There, you bumped it up seven eight more grand."
In a wild game, the Flyers took leads of 3-1 and 4-3, but Game 2 hero Bellows scored 79 seconds into the third period and the teams again headed for overtime.
"That day, Terry (Crisp) wore a hockey tie and there was a scoreboard on it," Crisp's wife, Sheila, recalls. "The score said 5-4. On the back of the tie was the name of the kid who drew the picture for the tie. His name was Jeff. Our son's name is Jeff. We figured that was a good omen. We were meant to win."
The Lightning did. At 2:04 of overtime, Selivanov scored what still ranks as the greatest goal in franchise history to give the Bolts a 2-1 lead in the series.
"I've done a lot of things in my career," then-Lightning general manager Phil Esposito said. "I've won Stanley Cups, played in All-Star games, made it to the Hall of Fame. But that moment, when Alex scored that goal, still is the most thrilling thing I've ever been a part of."
"At that moment," Reese said, "I was convinced we were going to win the series."
