Many people know I've been blogging a long time. In a couple of days (February 10th) I'll reach my eighth anniversary writing about the Tampa Bay Lightning in my blogging capacity.

Yet, I got my appetite wet while writing about the Lightning before blogging entered the mainstream. There's a forgotten place that existed way-back-when from the dot-com boom era (that flared out and went dot-com bust).

You are aware Rivals.com used to cater to general sports, aren't you? Probably not, as it was so long ago. Rivals is now known for its prep sports coverage but, indeed, it had tried to be what SB Nation is now - covering everything in sports with independent publishers covering individual teams. That was when the Web was just beginning to attract the general masses and people were breaking free of the perception that America Online was the Internet.

Rivals.com, before falling down and restructuring, hosted a Tampa Bay Lightning team page by the name of BoltsMag. It was a small but solid group of fans (including Chad Schnarr of BoltProspects.com fame, myself, and a few others of note) who sometimes contributed to the site's content with stories of their own.

It was there that I got my first by-line. I'm not even sure the exact date of publication of the story in question. Unfortunately, the web archives are all but fried for Lightning.rivals.com, and attempting to use the Wayback Machine will only get you a brief flash of the community website before a redirect takes place.

I can say that it was written with the 2001 NHL All-Star game in mind, while reflecting on the 2000 NHL All-Star game and the flaw of the All-Star game format employed at the time.

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I love hockey.

I've followed the NHL (and the Lightning) since I was 8. I've played hockey for just as long. I still play. I aspire to have a job in hockey. As in a job I take to retirement. Writer, trainer, player, equipment manager, mascot, ANY job.

Except one.

Head coach.

Being head coach/manager in any professional sport is a death trap. It's a job that requires all the family and personal sacrifice of being a player, with a quarter of the pay, a tenth of the credit when the team is successful, and 150% of the blame when the team isn't. It's a thankless job that requires a guy to manage egos more than strategy, media who have as much sport experience as coaches have privacy, and quicker turn around in expectation than politicians.

It's a profession that can see you sneak into the playoffs as the last seed on the last day of the season and earn some respect one year, and then fall out of the playoffs of the last day of the season the next and lose your job. And that's considered normal.

No thanks.

So, of course, with the Lightning toiling around the bottom third of the Eastern Conference this season, some people want Guy Boucher's head.

I'm not one of them. I think he's done a great job, and the only thing I would change is the one thing that's been supremely undocumented thus far in his tenure: his willingness to absolutely punish his players in practice.

Have you ever seen a report of Boucher absolutely bag-sake the hell of the Lightning? Me neither. Does that mean it hasn't happened? No. But that doesn't mean it has either. That's the one thing I'd change about him. That's it. Some public notification that he is not happy with the team's effort. Is that playing into the media's hand? Maybe. Is that being a good coach? Definitely.

I digress, but it does lead to this week's Question of the Week - open to both the Raw Charge staff and the Lightning Blogosphere: In general, I think most fans support Guy Boucher, and I certainly do, but if you could change just one aspect about how he's handled the team, what would it be?

Answers from the staff and Boltsosphere after the break. But let's hear yours in the comments, yeah?

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Here's a scary thought. What if the season is mimicking games? That is, slow start, spotting the rest of the conference the equivalent of two goals, only to come back and get into playoffs at the very last minute?

Think about that for a minute. If you condense the season down to a game, then 27 games and one period equals one period of a game. (Playoffs could be considered overtime.) And since the Lightning finished up Game 48, that would put the Lightning at about eight minutes left in the second period. And being nine points out of eighth in the standings, well, you could call that being down by two or three goals, right?

To take the analogy a step farther, you could look at injuries as penalties. And, in this case, with so many guys having been out, the Lightning will be coming back to full strength pretty soon after the All-Star break. Sure, they'll still be a man short on the bench with Mattias Ohlund likely missing the rest of the season, but it's better than having a bunch of guys stuck in the penalty box, right?

Okay, I realize that this is a stretch. But my point is, the Lightning have just won their last four games - and two of those were on the road. And they're finally starting to click together. Their luck is just starting to turn around, or so it seems.

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The Tampa Bay Lightning defeated the Columbus Blue Jackets 4-2 Tuesday night at the Tampa Bay Times Forum, their fourth win in a row.

In a season that has been marked by a search for consistency, one thing you've been able to count on fairly regularly is for the Lightning to play up or down to the level of whatever opponent they're facing. Good, solid efforts against league powerhouses have frequently been offset by dismal, sloppy outings against non-contenders. So coming off a three game stretch featuring wins over the defending world champions and two teams jostling for playoff spots in the Western Conference, how would the Bolts fare against the team with the worst record in the league in the last game before the extended All-Star break?

Not great maybe, but certainly not too bad.

"I don't think we'd like to have the break right now in terms of how we're rolling in games, but if you're going to get a break, you want to finish on a winning note." - Martin St. Louis

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WHERE: Tampa Bay Times Forum, Tampa, Florida
WHEN: 7:30 PM EST | | TICKETS: Check Availability
MEDIA: Sun Sports (cable), 970 WFLA (radio)
OPPONENT COVERAGE: The Cannon

It's fitting that the Lightning end the first half of the NHL season with a showdown with the Union Army and the Columbus Blue Jackets. Why fitting? Because the Bolts have sacked and raided the Confederate stronghold of Norfolk over the past few weeks. Oh, they have good reason to have done it (with injuries, injuries, and more injuries to the Tampa Bay Lightning roster) but ... well, Ads fans can't be too happy with that.

Dana Tyrell, J.T. Wyman, Pierre-Cedric Labrie, Trevor Smith, Evan "Yo-Yo" Oberg, and now Mike Angelidis have all been recalled at one point or another for the Bolts. Angelidis and Oberg were both formally recalled this morning (with Evan having been sent back to Norfolk immediately following the Lightning's victory in Phoenix on Saturday night). While recalls have happened, and have had to happen, the Admirals can and should be feeling the crunch from losing key players off their roster.

With 42 games played in their season, the Ads are a scant few percentage points behind the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins and the Hershey Bears In the Eastern Division standings. They're seeded sixth in the AHL Eastern Conference.

While Bolts fans have been desperate to see the likes of forward Carter Ashton, defenseman Radko Gudas and goalie Dustin Tokarski in Tampa Bay Lightning uniforms, those players (and others like Mark Barberio, Cory Conacher, and Jaroslav Janus) are integral in keeping the Admirals afloat and in contention in their own playoff race. While we're used to the Lightning focusing on the NHL team and nothing else, the current Lightning brain trust want to develop a winner at all levels.

So while the great raid of Norfolk has occurred, don't expect it to last or go further. As players like Ryan Malone, Ryan Shannon, Marc-Andre Bergeron, Victor Hedman, Tom Pyatt, Tyrell, Adam Hall and (maybe even) Mattias Ohlund heal and return to the Lightning lineup, the likes of Wyman, Smith, Labrie, Oberg and Angelidis will go back to Norfolk to help with the playoff push and vying for the Calder Cup (the AHL's championship trophy).

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