It was a great night for all the fans of the hockey team in the St. Petersburg/Tampa Bay area. A franchise mired in a history of NHL poverty and lowball high jinks is now sitting on top of the hockey world.
The Tampa Bay Lightning prevailed over the Calgary Flames in Game 6 in double OT, and once again in Game 7 to win Lord Stanley’s Cup.
Wow, I can remember when the Lightning’s best players were Michelle Petite and Shawn Burr. Now, they have two of the best players in the NHL in Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis.
Tampa even once tried to sign Michael Renberg on the back of napkin. Since Bill Davison took up ownership of the team, he has worked wonders, and I said it first over a year ago.
Tampa Bay won the Stanley Cup, but not without a little controversy.
Martin Gelinas’ shot late in the third period of Game 6 passed the goal line by about six inches and yet was discounted. It would have given the Flames a 3-2 lead and if they could’ve hung on then they’d be 2003-04 Stanley Cup Champs.
Gelinas goal is bigger than Brett Hull’s Stanley Cup winning goal in 1999 for Dallas when he was illegally in the crease, which was illegal in those days. Why? Because the rule was highly hypocritical at the time and if his skate had been out of the crease by about half a foot, Dominic Hasek still wouldn’t have stopped the shot.
The shot seemed to pass the goal line by about six inches or so before Lightning goalie Nikolai Khabibulin kicked it out after it bounced off Gelinas skate. Had it counted, it would have been Gelinas’s fourth series ending goal of the playoffs, which has earned him the nickname the “Eliminator.”
So there should be asterisk or we should all just know that Tampa’s victory was sort of a sham of sorts. Sort of similar to Nebraska’s winning a share of the 1997 National Championship beating Missouri by using an illegal bicycle kick of a Scott Frost pass. » Read more: Tampa Bay’s Stanley Cup triumph mired in controversy