<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=0nQt9X_0jeARt1g00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=0nQt9X_0jeARt1g00" width="640" height="360" ><figcaption>The Tampa Bay Lightning played their inaugural season (1992-1993) at Expo Hall, a converted livestock pavilion at the Florida State Fairgrounds. [&nbsp;Times files&nbsp;]</figcaption></figure>TAMPA — The group of players that made up the inaugural Lightning team 30 years ago was a band of misfits, dumped onto the scrap heap by their previous organizations, sent to a place where many had never watched hockey, let alone knew the nuances of the game.Long before the Lightning became one of the most successful franchises in the NHL, these were Tampa Bay’s first hockey ambassadors. As much as they were playing to extend their careers, introducing the sport to an area foreign to it was perhaps an even more important part of their jobs. Founder Phil Esposito was ambitious in building a new brand and he needed messengers to promote the game.<nbtemplate data-id="AdPlaceholder" data-content="JTdCJTdE"></nbtemplate>“We were all kind of coming from teams where no one wanted us, so we all wanted to prove people wrong,” said former Lightning forward Brian Bradley, who was the 36th pick in the expansion draft, but scored a career-high 42 goals in Tampa Bay’s inaugural season (1992-93) and was the franchise’s first All-Star. “We wanted to say, ‘Hey, we were good enough to play,’ but we got let go for various reasons. We all had an agenda and a chip on our shoulder, we had pride and we wanted to go out there play hard.”At the Lightning’s first home — the converted livestock pavilion at the Florida State Fairgrounds known as Expo Hall — there was an outdoor tent, much like the ones you see at major golf tournaments, where Lightning players would have postgame drinks and mingle with fans.<nbtemplate data-id="AdPlaceholder" data-content="JTdCJTdE"></nbtemplate>In the early days of the Lightning, the team flew commercial, so there wasn’t a rush out of the rink, and the interaction with the fans set the foundation of what is still a strong connection between the players and the people who cheer for them.<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=2rzNUf_0jeARt1g00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=2rzNUf_0jeARt1g00" width="620" height="450" ><figcaption>The Lightning's Brian Bradley (19) looks for skating room as he tries to make his way around the Rangers' Joe Cirella during a 1992 game. [&nbsp;Associated Press&nbsp;]</figcaption></figure>“After the game, everybody paused. If we were flying out, we weren’t flying out until the next morning,” said longtime Lightning TV host Paul Kennedy, an original broadcaster covering the team for the then-Sunshine Network. “They would all come in, get some cocktails in their coats and ties and visit with the fans. It was a different era.”<nbtemplate data-id="AdPlaceholder" data-content="JTdCJTdE"></nbtemplate>“And they were perfect for this,” Kennedy added. “It was, ‘I wasn’t wanted, and now I have a perspective that I need to sell this. I’m more mature.’ (John) Tucker comes back from Europe. Brian Bradley had something to prove. The guys are all coming from different franchises, a lot of them played with Original Six teams. ‘I’m not at Maple Leaf Gardens, I’m not at The Forum in Montreal or Madision Square Garden. I’m not coming from Chicago Stadium.’ ”<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=2fDoE9_0jeARt1g00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=2fDoE9_0jeARt1g00" width="426" height="302" ></figure><nbtemplate data-id="AdPlaceholder" data-content="JTdCJTdE"></nbtemplate>Many players arrived in Tampa from cold-weather climates feeling out of place, even though they could adjust quickly to shorts and sandals in winter and early afternoon tee times on practice days. They embraced anonymity in their new home; in many of their previous cities, they couldn’t go to dinner without getting recognized. Now, they were explaining to fans what a hat trick was over a Molson.<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=3Q6pW5_0jeARt1g00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=3Q6pW5_0jeARt1g00" width="620" height="406" ><figcaption>Lightning goaltender Pat Jablonski sits on the bench during a game in the inaugural season/ [&nbsp;Times (1993)&nbsp;]</figcaption></figure><nbtemplate data-id="AdPlaceholder" data-content="JTdCJTdE"></nbtemplate>“I think that really brought the fans in and they were allowed to mingle with us and get to know the players,” said Ttw “I don’t think that happens today. But we had to do it then, because we were new. ... Thinking back on it now, we were selling the game.”“We were meeting parents and kids,” he added. “Well, guess who those kids are now? They’re season ticket holders. We weren’t thinking that way. But now we’re older and we see what it’s done and that’s brilliant. It was marketing, just connecting with the fans, and that’s huge.”Expo Hall was an experiment in itself. Better fitted for 4-H shows than hosting the Flyers, it held just 10,000 fans, making it the smallest arena in the league. Original Lightning players remember it being loud because of its size, but it had few amenities.<nbtemplate data-id="AdPlaceholder" data-content="JTdCJTdE"></nbtemplate>Paul Ysebaert, who joined the Lightning in the team’s third season after it had moved to the ThunderDome (now Tropicana Field), remembered coming into Expo Hall as a visiting player with Detroit. The visiting locker room was tiny, and Red Wings players would throw their wooden sticks in the zamboni snowbank outside or in the neighboring pond to bend their blades. Ysebaert said he used to see Lightning defenseman Roman Hamrlik fishing in that pond before games.In that first season, the Lightning were playing in the Norris Division, competing with established powers like Chicago, Detroit and Toronto, each of which posted 99 or more points that season. They wouldn’t get to the playoffs until season No. 4 in 1995-96.“People in Florida had no idea what hockey was all about, so I think having all that interactive stuff helped a lot,” said former Lightning goaltender Daren Puppa, who joined the team in its second season, nabbed from Florida in Phase II of the expansion draft. “They had to come to the games. They were cheap seats, too, so people started coming to the game because they did not cost a fortune. ... I think once they went through a live game, they got hooked.”<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=2qEGAt_0jeARt1g00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=2qEGAt_0jeARt1g00" width="620" height="404" ><figcaption>The Lightning moved to the ThunderDome in St. Petersburg for home games in their second season. [&nbsp;Times (1993)&nbsp;]</figcaption></figure>When the Lightning moved across the bay to the ThunderDome in Year 2, their postgame social hours continued in a tent. There was a kids playground there that helped attract families to the games.“Every game we’d always say, ‘Hey, five or six or seven players go in there, sign some autographs, mingle with the crowd.’ And the people loved that,” said Bradley, still with the organization as the team’s community relations representative. “That was actually part of the thing where I would go there, not every game, but I’d go probably eight out of 10 games.“And being one of the captains of the team, we told all the guys, ‘Look, you don’t have to go every night. But we need to have representation.’ This is what Phil and Tony (Esposito) and our ownership wanted. And it’s not hard for you to spend 15 minutes of your time having a beer with your wife at the end of the game before we go home at night. And I think people loved that we were doing that.”• • •Sign up for Lightning Strikes, a weekly newsletter from Bolts beat writer Eduardo A. 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Mountain View, CA

TAMPA — The group of players that made up the inaugural Lightning team 30 years ago was a band of misfits, dumped onto the scrap heap by their previous organizations, sent to a place where many had never watched hockey, let alone knew the nuances of the game. Long...