Selection to Lightning Hall of Fame’s inaugural class ‘very, very special’ for Phil Esposito
TAMPA — For Phil Esposito, watching the Lightning grow from his pipe dream to a standard for NHL franchises over their three decades of existence is like watching his child grow up.
The Lightning founder spent years drumming up local support and funding, and selling to the NHL the idea that hockey could be successful in Florida. Even when the franchise played its first game in 1992 at Expo Hall at the Florida State Fairgrounds — a year before the expansion Panthers began play — the work had just begun. Esposito helped the franchise navigate through its first seasons by trying to build a competitive team despite serious financial constraints.
“It’s like my baby,” Esposito, who turned 81 on Monday, said Thursday. “There were a lot of people that really helped me, but there’s no denying it was my idea.”
Esposito is an inaugural member of the Lightning’s new Hall of Fame, to be inducted with Marty St. Louis and Vinny Lecavalier, who both have their numbers retired by the team, March 17 at Amalie Arena. He also will be celebrated the next night, before a home game against St. Louis’ Canadiens.
Esposito, a Hockey Hall of Fame member for his playing career, was fitted Thursday for his Lightning Hall of Fame jacket, which will be the same shade of blue as the team’s jerseys.
“For me, to be the first is very, very special,” said Esposito, who was picked for the class by a 10-member committee consisting of team personnel, broadcasters and media members close to the team. “Vinny and Marty got their numbers retired. It’s terrific. I love to see the players’ numbers retired. I have mine retired in Boston.
“But this, it feels like my kids have graduated college, they’ve gone on. You know, I’m a great-grandfather now. And I’m like, ‘Holy cripe, you know, this is something.’ And now, to start this Hall of Fame, it took awhile.
“You have to set some sort of tradition first before you can go on and do the things that you really think are the right things to do. This is the right thing to do to start a Hall of Fame here, without a doubt.”
The Lightning have won three Stanley Cups, including two in the past three seasons, and are seen as a model franchise on and off the ice. Meanwhile, owner Jeff Vinik’s Water Street project is turning the area around the arena into an urban hub that was unthinkable when Esposito first eyed a barren plot of land off the water across from Harbour Island years ago.
“After 30 years, I think the tradition and three Stanley Cups and going to the (Cup) finals, it’s incredible,” Esposito said. “And when I talk about it, I get little goose bumps. Because for me, the 2004 (team) when they won that (first) Stanley Cup, it was like my kid has graduated and they’ve moved on, thank God.
“But this is special for me. It really is. I make small of things, it’s just my way, but it’s special.”
Esposito, the league’s seventh all-time leading goal scorer, remembers his first time in Tampa. He had just made a golf trip to Orlando with friends, and despite the region’s lack of high-rise buildings, he immediately was intrigued by the notion of establishing hockey in the region.
“I was driving in, and I was like, ‘Where are the buildings? There’s no buildings. How could this be the 12th-largest television market in the country?’ " he said. “Obviously, I didn’t realize about Bradenton and Clearwater, and Brandon wasn’t even incorporated and all the rest of that. And from that moment on, and meeting a guy named Henry Paul, from that moment on, there was nothing else I wanted to do.”
Paul partnered with Esposito to help establish the franchise’s early business operations and served as the team’s first vice president and secretary. He also was a nominee for the first Lightning Hall class.
Esposito was the Lightning’s general manager for their first seven seasons and said he had to constantly sell players on the area. He said one player complained to him that the weather was too hot. Esposito traded him to Edmonton, he said, “so he could freeze his (butt) off.”
“That was the biggest thing for me in the beginning, trying to explain to people up north and Canada and New York, all these places, that we play indoors. Would you rather be coming out of the game to 65 to 70 (degrees) or 10 below (zero)? Duh. And it took awhile to get the players to be interested … not so much of the weather as much as the money, and it was hard to justify.
“And here we are, having a Hall of Fame for the Tampa Bay Lightning. And long after I’m gone, this thing will still be going, and I hope it goes forever, because without a doubt this is the greatest thing I’ve ever done in hockey. And I did a lot of things as a player.”
Esposito still is in the ears of many the current Lightning players as the team’s radio analyst, usually telling them to shoot the puck more.
“Obviously, the perfect guy to kick that (Hall of Fame) off,” captain Steven Stamkos said of Esposito. “I think it’s great for this organization. We’ve had a long-enough history now where we can start to celebrate some of the people that have made this to the franchise that it is today, and obviously Phil was the founding father.”
Contact Eduardo A. Encina at eencina@tampabay.com. Follow @EddieintheYard.
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