TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 Tampa Bay Lightning captain Victor Hedman said the easy choice for his team\u2019s entrance to Sunday\u2019s Stadium Series game against the Boston Bruins would have been to dress like pirates.<\/p>\n
The annual Gasparilla Pirate Festival is this weekend, after all, bringing 500,000 people to Tampa Bay for a fake invasion of the bay.<\/p>\n
But in the end, the Lightning went another route, showing up at Raymond James Stadium in creamsicle throwback Tampa Bay Buccaneers uniforms.<\/p>\n
Lightning players popped off a trolley and paid homage to their local NFL team, whose stadium they\u2019re using for the 45th outdoor game in NHL history. Putting it over the top, Bucs quarterback Baker Mayfield (wearing a Lightning jersey) led the team in, with offensive lineman Tristan Wirfs holding a boom box over his shoulder as a hype man.<\/p>\n
Mayfield has been a presence at Lightning games, including paying a visit after Thursday\u2019s game against the Winnipeg Jets.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, a lot of guys are friends with them,\u201d Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh said. \u201cWe support each other. This is such a great sports town. All the teams here support each other and have relationships with one another. A couple guys texted him, threw the idea out to him, and he said, \u2018No problem. Let me just get back from the Bahamas.\u2019 It meant the world to us that those guys wanted to lead us in.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bruins also went the football route \u2014 kind of \u2014 dressing like patriots from the American Revolution. The Patriots, of course, are New England\u2019s NFL team, and will play in the Super Bowl next Sunday. The team asked a local costume designer<\/a> to help it with its pregame threads.<\/p>\n \u201cBring something Bostonian tied to Boston,\u201d Bruins\u2019 Nikita Zadorov said. \u201cBoston is known as a really historical city in the United States. So we decided to dress up as patriots from the 17th and 16th century, giving respect to the Founding Fathers of America. Also it\u2019s good ties to our football team. We\u2019re at a football stadium. So I thought it played out pretty well.\u201d<\/p>\n Hedman noted how much less padding the NFL uniforms boast, which gave him and his teammates even more respect for football players taking part in such a physical sport.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s crazy to see them go 100 miles an hour against each other,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Lightning coach Jon Cooper joked that while they have many big players on their team, they wouldn\u2019t be \u201cbig\u201d football players.<\/p>\n Bruins coach Marco Sturm gave his team rave reviews: \u201cI thought they looked pretty good. They put a lot of work in over the last couple weeks there. They had a lot of guys coming to the rink in between games to get fitted. I think they look pretty sharp today.\u201d<\/p>\n