The Tampa Bay Lightning have a way with marketing. Without a doubt, they have been the best team in the area at selling themselves over the past couple years, and they have built up a considerable amount of goodwill and positive energy in the community. It takes effort to sell hockey in the Sun Belt (see: Atlanta, Miami), but the Lightning have managed to keep energy and fan interest high.
↵How have they maintained their momentum? The Bolts are the best team in the Bay area at coming up with catchy slogans and marketing the heck out of them. Last season's slogan "All In" took on a life of its own down the stretch, and they have followed it up with "Be The Thunder" this year. If you pop onto Twitter, you'll notice these hashtags popping up all the time among Lightning fans.
↵Meanwhile, I'm a huge Rays fan, and I can't tell you what their "slogan" was two seasons ago. I can't even remember last season's. Sure, season slogans are a relatively minor detail, but the Lightning have made theirs do some serious work.
↵Anyway, all this is a long way of saying: the Bolts released a new promotional video and it's pretty sweet. The video features all sorts of highlights from this season, and with the motivational music in the background, if that doesn't pump you up, nothing will.
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My one quibble: the Lightning are bending the truth a tad by including video of Roloson making a spectacular save, no? If only that Roloson had been around all season, the Bolts might be in the thick of the playoff hunt.
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