TAMPA, Fla. — The Tampa Bay Lightning joined the NHL in the 1992-93 season. They played their inaugural season in the league’s smallest arena — The Expo Hall at the Tampa Fairgrounds. The facility held only 10,000 people.
The next season, the Bolts decided to go big and move to the Thunderdome.
“It’s hard to believe we are talking about the 30th anniversary in 1992,” former Lightning center from 1992-98 Brian Bradley said. “Playing at the Expo Hall with 10,000 people and going to the Thunderdome, which was 28,000 people for the regular season and playoffs, it was quite amazing.”
Before the days of NHL games being played in massive football and baseball stadiums for the annual outdoor games, there was the Thunderdome. It was built in 1990 in the hopes of bringing a Major League Baseball team to Tampa Bay.
“Tickets were great. Very accessible, very affordable,” Lightning fan Brian Marton said. “If I paid $10 at the window, it’s because someone didn’t offer me a $7 ticket walking from the parking lot.”
Marton went to that first game at the Expo Hall and the first game at the Thunderdome.
“FanLand over at Tropicana Field, or the Thunderdome, afforded you to kick a field goal or hit a slap shot fast enough and win free tickets to the next home game, so we went a lot,” he said.
The Bolts played hockey in a domed baseball stadium for three seasons while their new building in downtown Tampa was under construction.
“I think home plate was one of the nets,” Bradley said. “One of the things that were difficult, not that the ice was different, the crowds were great, but getting to and from the dressing room after warming up. It would take you two minutes to get back to the dressing room because you’re walking the corridors all the way around.”
The Thunderdome looks much different now.
But on April 23, 1996, this stadium set an NHL attendance postseason record that still holds today. During game 4 of the first round, the Lightning faced the Philadelphia Flyers in front of 28,183 fans.
“The crowd was great, the noise, the atmosphere in the Thunderdome was electric that night,” Bradley said.
“We’re waving signs just to try to get on TV,” Marton said. “My sign said, ‘Hey Philadelphia, your Flyers are open.’ That was clever, except for the typo I discovered later. I think I misspelled Philadelphia, but who cares.”
The Lightning lost that series in six games, and the next season, they moved into their new arena called the Ice Palace, now known as Amalie Arena.
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