Esposito : « Longtemps après mon départ, cette chose continuera d’exister et j’espère qu’elle durera pour toujours. Pour toujours. Parce que, sans aucun doute, c’est la plus grande chose que j’ai jamais faite au hockey. »
Esposito: “Long after I’m gone, this thing will be still going and I hope it goes forever. Forever. Because, without a doubt, this is the greatest thing I’ve ever done in hockey.”
— Chris Krenn (@Chris_Krenn) February 23, 2023
—
mishey22
16 Comments
Espo making it all dusty in here
Phil making me cry on a Thursday morning.
Met him when the team first started & I was playing for TBJL. One of the nicest guys to the kids there. The org isn’t going anywhere! Bigger statue needed for him.
🐐🐐🐐
I’ve never met that man, but I love that man!
One of the best players in history and a champion for one of the most historic franchises in the NHL and yet him founding the Lightning is his greatest achievement
That’s our true GOAT
Hockey Royalty speaks. Saying this about TBL- with all he’s accomplished- that’s a huge compliment to his team. He must be so proud.
TBL fan since 92
I literally love this man.
What a freakin legend!
THANK YOU ESPO!!!
The story of how Phil got and kept a team here is so wild that if you put it in a movie, nobody would believe it.
Phil Esposito is an absolute saint. There’s no one more fitting to enter this new HOF!
Getting to shoot the shit with Espo in the freight elevator on game days is what I will remember the most from getting to work with the team (aside from a certain magic night in June, obviously). Man utterly oozes charisma and likeability. Was really interesting to get his take on the Terry Schiavo situation that went on that year.
It’s true though, the Lightning can be winning cups 50 years into the future after he kicks the bucket and it will all be because of him
One of the coolest things I’ve ever done was interview Uncle Phil between periods, both of us leaning on the trash can outside the radio booth at what’s now Amalie Arena, for a profile I was writing on Dave Mishkin in college.
I think I posted this story on here years ago but whatever:
In the Lightning’s first season in Expo Hall, the building was so small that one end of the rink was too close to the building to have proper seating. So that’s where they put 3 rows of wheelchair accessible seats, and subsequently where my family sat for a few games that first season. I’m talking right on the glass behind the net (I can’t recall if it was where the Bolts attacked twice or once per game, probably because I was terrified the glass was going to break every time someone got checked in front of us).
At like our 4th or 5th game, I noticed there were a bunch of dudes in suits standing against the rail in the last row. One of them came down and spent the whole period talking to people. He came over to us, me in particular, and asked if we were enjoying ourselves and how we liked the sport. I started asking questions, so the guy took the time to explain the offside and icing rules, which were really confusing me (at ice level that ish is even harder to see). He left, and the usher came over all excited tell us that was Phil Esposito, the General Manager, which didn’t mean anything to me at the time. But he signed a puck for me so I thought he might be important.
Crazy now to think that a Hockey HOF’er, probably one of the top 10 players in league history, may have been an even better salesman than he was a player.
Still have the puck btw