By now we’re all frustratingly familiar with the outside world–especially the sports version, especially TV broadcasters–misidentifying this area. Tampa and Tampa Bay are typically confused. As in the “city” of Tampa Bay or Tropicana Field, the home of the Tampa Bay Rays, being in Tampa.
Now here’s a new variation on a geography-challenged theme, this one from Sunday’s New York Times in an article about next year’s realignment of the National Hockey League. The impact on the Tampa Bay Lightning is hardly nominal. Currently they are in a division with Washington, Carolina, Florida (Sunrise) and Winnipeg (relocated from Atlanta). Next year they are in with Boston, Buffalo, Florida, Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. In analyzing the new format, the NYT talked about rivalries and how some northern teams draw well in the south. The realignment, said the Times, “gave the two southernmost clubs more games with Montreal, Toronto and Buffalo–teams that traditionally fill the arenas in St. Petersburg and Sunrise with northern transplants and vacationers.”
Does the realignment include a return to the “Thunder Dome?”