{"id":137388,"date":"2026-01-30T08:09:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T08:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/137388\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T08:09:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T08:09:07","slug":"lightning-cant-wait-for-stadium-series-amid-red-hot-stretch-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/137388\/","title":{"rendered":"Lightning \u2018can\u2019t wait\u2019 for Stadium Series amid red-hot stretch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TAMPA &#8212; Jon Cooper called this upcoming weekend Tampa\u2019s miniature version of Mardi Gras.<\/p>\n<p>And right now, his Tampa Bay Lightning are definitely the stars of the festivities.<\/p>\n<p>At least 500,000 people are expected to be on hand Saturday to watch the annual Gasparilla Pirate Fest, which features a pirate ship full of rowdy scallywags sailing to the Tampa Bay Convention Center where the mayor will hand over the keys to the city to them.<\/p>\n<p>Twenty-four hours later, about 65,000 fans will pack Raymond James Stadium to see the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/events\/nhl-stadium-series\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2026 Navy Federal Credit Union NHL Stadium Series<\/a> between the host Lightning and the visiting Boston Bruins (6:30 p.m. ET; ESPN, SN, TVAS).<\/p>\n<p>Raymond James Stadium is the home of the NFL\u2019s Tampa Bay Buccaneers. How fitting, then, that Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield got a tour of the Lightning dressing room at Benchmark International Arena after Tampa Bay\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/news\/winnipeg-jets-tampa-bay-lightning-game-recap-january-29-2026\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">4-1 victory<\/a> against the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>With the Lightning on a 16-1-1 run right now, it seems everyone wants to be around them these days.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re going to see if he can suit up for us,\u201d Cooper said of Mayfield before breaking into laughter.<\/p>\n<p>Given the fact that the NHL is holding a second outdoor game in the state of Florida in the span of a month, anything is possible, the Lightning coach said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGary Bettman, he\u2019s one [heck] of a commissioner,\u201d Cooper said, a wry grin on his face. &#8220;Anybody that can make it be 40 degrees [Fahrenheit] in Tampa on the night of the outdoor game, he\u2019s wielding a magic wand.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt might screw up the suit I was going to wear. I wasn\u2019t anticipating it was going to be this cold. But it\u2019s going to be great. It\u2019ll be great for this city, especially with the celebration of Gasparilla \u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u201cQuite frankly, I think it\u2019s going to be magical, especially with the way the weather is going to be like a true outdoor game, open air,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA &#8212; Jon Cooper called this upcoming weekend Tampa\u2019s miniature version of Mardi Gras. And right now, his&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":{"0":"post-137388","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-tampa","9":"tag-tampa-headlines","10":"tag-tampa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}