For luck, Lightning fans try rituals like not shaving or wearing the same shirt. It doesn't work: Flyers win 5-4.
By GRAHAM BRINK and SAUNDRA AMRHEIN
Published May 21, 2004
[Times photo: Bob Croslin]
Lauren Kelly, center, Allison Pope, right, and Jacquie Henderson, left, react outside the St. Pete Times Forum as Philadelphia scores the game-winning goal in overtime against the Lightning. Photo gallery Flyers stay alive
TAMPA - Brad Kelly showed up at the St. Pete Times Forum wearing the same unwashed Lightning jersey he's sported for ever playoff game this year.
The self-employed accountant has grown a playoff beard. He also closes his eyes for each opening face off.
Kelly, 38, was one of 500 or more fans who came to watch the Tampa Bay Lightning play game six against the Philadelphia Flyers on the big screen television set up outside the Forum.
He had watched every away game from his couch in South Tampa, but in this case he decided to break from his stay-at-home ritual.
"Maybe I should never have left the couch," Kelly said, 90 minutes before the first puck dropped.
Kelly's worst fears were realized hours later when the Lightning lost, 5-4, in overtime, forcing a seventh game Saturday night at the St. Pete Times Forum.
The Stanley Cup playoffs can run for two months for the teams that make the finals. The ultimate winner must tally 16 wins to take home the cup. It's a grind, a test of stamina. And that's just for the fans.
Rituals become sacrosanct. Superstitions abound.
Some fans eat the same meal before watching every game. Others make sure they have the exact number of beers they consumed during the last winning games.
One man outside the Times Forum said he has gone the whole playoff run without uttering the opposing teams' formal names. Instead, he inserts "losers" and a word that rhymes with "suckers."
Even the lead singer of the band playing as fans arrived got into the act. He told listeners about the wilting carrot in his refrigerator that has gone untouched in weeks.
"We cannot move it," he said, before breaking into a Tom Petty song. "It's bringing good luck."
Across the bay, at Ferg's Sports Bar in St. Petersburg, two lawyers worked on a bucket of Bud Lights and booed each time the Flyers scored. They had planned on going to the Devil Rays game later in the evening, but couldn't stop watching the Lightning.
"There's not as much pressure, because of game seven," said John McGuire, who spent $8,000 on tickets for the playoffs. "Either way, it's fun. Either way, they're going to the cup."
Back outside the Times Forum, Jerry Cantor, 41, called his boss at the telemarketing company where he works to tell him he wasn't coming to work for a few days. Cantor felt compelled to line up two days in advance for a pair of the 200 $8 tickets that would go on sale for Game 7 at home on Saturday.
"He understood," Cantor said. "He said I had Lightningitis and told me to come back when they won the cup."
Some people are not so understanding.
Take Christina Gerrets' former fiance. He dumped her because of another passion.
"I was watching games all the time and didn't want to leave the house," Gerrets said, huddled with two friends around a table in front of a big-screen television at Beef O'Brady's across the street from the forum.
Gerrets became a rabid fan about five years ago.
"I love all the action, I love all the guys," she said.
"Gorgeous guys," corrected friend, 23-year-old Christina Burnison of Seminole.
Too gorgeous. Aside from her time, Gerrets said her ex-fiance was also jealous of her crush on Vincent Lecavalier.
"I can't be with a guy who doesn't like hockey," she said. "It's one of my passions. If he can't understand one of my passions and be open to it and try to accept or and support it, I can't be with him."
Luckily, her latest beau matches her interest. Thursday night, as the Lightning led the Flyers in the second period, he had other priorities - namely sleep so he could get up for work.
Friend Angela Williams, 20, sets her priorities along with her two friends. She gave up a date Thursday night to be with the girls - and the guys on ice.
"He says, "It's okay, I understand,' " Williams said of her boyfriend.
The three young women hadn't missed a game in more than two months. And they had made lots of new friends, including the two men sitting at the next table, one intermittently ringing a cow bell.
To them, the long season and agonizing crawl to the Stanley Cup adds to the fun.
"It's strenuous, it's very nerve-racking," Gerrets said, as she and her table yelled orders at the Lightning players, calling them by their first names. Other fans filled the outdoor patio around them.
"But I'm happy it's prolonging the hockey season," Gerrets added.
In between Lightning games, the three women have watch taped Lightning games or other teams' playoff games. They've begged their parents to buy them tickets to games. When that doesn't work, they take turns camping out for them.
They follow their own traditions - like not wearing the same jerseys as another friend the same night. Or driving around the Times Forum before the games.
As the minutes ticked down in the third period, with both teams tied, the women could barely watch. Burnison put her hands to her face. Gerrets rubbed her hands on her legs.
Heading into overtime, all three women grabbed their cell phones. Gerrets was hyperventilating.
"I really don't want to go to Game 7," Gerrets said.
After Philadelphia won in overtime, the women trudged back to their cars, making plans for how they would get into Saturday's game.
"It's going to be a nail-biter," Burnison said. But the stress was worth it.
"If you're stressed from your daily life, you go to a hockey game and put your heart and soul into the game," she added. But that comes with a price.
"It breaks your heart when you lose like this."
Farther north, Robert Frew, 36, drove home from the Beef O'Brady's in Spring Hill disappointed.
"But hey, they played a hell of a game," he said. "It's been a hell of a series. I know they'll persevere. Game 7, here we come. Go Lightning!"
- Times staff writer Jamie Jones contributed to this report.
