Lightning usually brings rain, but the NHL's Tampa Bay Lightning could do without any (proverbial) precipitation on their (proverbial) parade.
Longtime hockey writer Damien Cox tweeted Monday night that the Lightning's Stanley Cup was "not as difficult" as previous seasons because there were "no road games, no travel." Never mind that there were "no road games, no travel" because of a global pandemic that now has killed over 1 million people worldwide, Cox argued that you can't "compare bubble hockey with the real thing."
Barclay Goodrow, former Sharks forward and -- as of Monday -- Stanley Cup champion with the Lightning, was having none of it. Goodrow hadn't written his own tweet since the Sharks traded him to the Lightning seven months ago -- remember, the Stanley Cup playoffs just ended because of said global pandemic -- and he returned to Twitter to blast Cox on Tuesday.
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The Lightning last played a regular-season game on March 10. The season was suspended two days later due to the coronavirus (COVID-19). Over four months later, the team traveled to Toronto to begin their stay in one of two Canadian bubbles as the NHL tried to complete its season and crown a champion.
Tampa Bay played 26 games -- one exhibition, three round-robin and 22 in four playoff rounds -- in 62 games, spending the vast majority of their time in Toronto and, later, Edmonton going back and forth between two buildings in each city, the hotel and the rink, in order to safely complete the season amid a -- here's the elephant in the room again -- global pandemic.
Is that easier than, say, playing on the road and hearing opposing fans yell "SHOOT" whenever the home team enters the offensive zone on a power play? Cox demurred in responding to Goodrow, saying this year was "just a different challenge."
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Cox's tweet was one worth dunking on, and the ratio isn't doing him any favors. Here's hoping Goodrow, outside of briefly joining in on the jam-fest, and the Lightning don't spend too much time dwelling on awful takes like this.
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They're champions, and the trying circumstances of this strange season only heighten the achievement.