Already member? Login first! This year, I was tremendously thankful that the Bolts did it again, winning in five games over the Montreal Canadiens — and back to the river they went for a second boat parade in less than days. With two taps of Moderna flowing in my veins, the risk even with the Delta variant surging in Florida seemed more than worth the reward. Armature Works at AM on a Monday. My girlfriend and I set up under the shade of the overpass across the river from Howard W.
Blake High School, which ended up being a smart call because even though there had been worries about rainy weather earlier in the week, at the time we parked it barely even classified as partly cloudy and the Florida sun was certainly doing its thing even through SPF 50 sunblock. More on the weather later. Our timing ended up near perfect. The lead boats started to approach roughly 15 minutes after we claimed our real estate along the route. Looks like Thunderbug had a few too many with new budlight partner Nikita Kucherov.
I call this boat the Red October. Next to come close to our side of the river, also with a trophy in tow, was head coach Jon Cooper, with the Prince of Wales as a figurehead on the bow. In classic Cooper form, always supremely appreciative of and connected to the Tampa Bay fans, he quickly acknowledged the passionate fan moment that was occurring to my immediate left with a long point and a thumbs up:. This was a really cool moment. My girlfriend was delighted. Yes, honey, I did. To my own personal delight as a long-time advocate of hockey analytics, the next boat was one of several hockey operations boats to come by, this one with the analytics team.
A fan to my right called for them to toss a Bud Light that, unsurprisingly, never materialized. Next came Alex Killorn in short shorts, a custom-made Killorn Tampa Bay Buccaneers jersey, and a wrestling championship belt. There was speculation on the bank around me, as Erik Cernak sped by on jet-ski, that Killorn had been asked by the team to stay off the jet-ski this year due to the rod he had just had inserted into his leg.
That speculation was later proven incorrect. A post shared by Kyle Abney kyleabney. We decided to refuel with a bite at Steelbach, the main sit-down restaurant at Armature Works, and were surprised to find the wait only 30 minutes. We have time to eat right? This is fine. Near hurricane-force gusts of wind kept forcing the cutesy old wooden door to fling open as torrential rain came down for about 20 minutes. Maintenance crew were alternating holding doors open and squeegeeing collected rain puddles outside.
