Tampa Bay Lightning Evacuate Due to Hurricane Milton, Practice in North Carolina

RALEIGH, N.C. — The Tampa Bay Lightning conducted a midday practice session in North Carolina on Tuesday following an evacuation from Florida on Monday night due to the impending Hurricane Milton. The storm, moving across the Gulf of Mexico, is forecasted to make landfall on Florida’s west coast late Wednesday or early Thursday, possibly impacting Tampa and St. Petersburg directly.

The Lightning are set to face the Carolina Hurricanes in the season opener for both teams at Lenovo Center on Friday evening. “For us, there’s a bigger picture,” commented Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper following the practice. “Like I told our guys, we’ve got to get away. There are a lot of people in our town who haven’t been able to get away. A lot of our thoughts are, ‘OK, hopefully everybody is going to be OK. What can we do when we get back to help everybody out that wasn’t afforded the ability to get out like we did?'”

The two hockey teams collaborated to ensure the Lightning’s safe evacuation from potential danger. Cooper extended his gratitude, noting, “We have an ability to bring our families and loved ones and pets with us. You have to thank the Carolina Hurricanes for everything they did to help us and to continue our training camp here. You’ve got to love that about our league, that everybody is still in it together, even though we’re going to beat each other up in a couple days. They deserve a lot of credit.”

The Lightning practiced at the Hurricanes’ facility in Morrisville, North Carolina. Cooper described the session as exceptionally productive, stating, “This is probably the best practice we’ve had all year. The guys were focused. I think we took care of a lot of the uncertainty of things these past couple days. (Senior director of team services) Ryan Belec did a heck of a job organizing us to make sure that we were all OK and we could focus on hockey. I think that translated to a really good work day today.”