Photo by Renee Renna

Ever have one of those moments where you accomplish something on your bucket list but it’s not at all what you thought it would be? I experienced just that this Tuesday night at the Tampa Bay Times Forum.  As the lockout stretches on, season ticket holders were invited to take to the home ice and take a spin around the rink.

Skating out onto NHL ice (no matter how tentatively you go) is pretty thrilling. Knowing you’re out there and your team may not be is pretty damn depressing.

It also gives you a lot of insight into how easy the players make it look out there. I’m more than a little out of practice when it comes to ice skating so it was a bit terrifying at first. These guys do insane things at extremely high speeds with giant guys trying to crush them into the boards. All of the armchair coaches or GMs need to step out there and give it a try. You may be less likely to rake your team over the coals when you realize what a feat it is just to stay upright.

While inside the arena, we got a preview of one of the new acquisitions. The absolutely gigantic new video board has been installed.  It stretches from blue line to blue line. Measuring 30 feet by 50 feet and is the largest indoor video board in the U.S. and Canada. Suck on that, Cowboys Stadium. We didn’t get to see it lit up, but it was an impressive sight nonetheless.

It’s even harder to get excited about this especially now that all regular season games have been cancelled through October 24th. Grand.