The Tampa Bay Lightning was honored pretty well by way of the 2016 Creative Loafing Best of the Bay voters. That survey runs annually in the Tampa / St. Petersburg metroplex and covers a wide variety of topics such as Arts & Entertainment, Goods & Services, and People, Places & Politics among others.
That last category, People, Places & Politics, is where sports and sports influence works its way into questions and results such as declaring the top professional sports team in Tampa Bay. The Lightning won. Downside: Creative Loafing utilized the team’s 2007-2011 team logo to represent the club in results… So much as for the best team getting its best logo in franchise history (the current one is best, thankyouverymuch).
Lightning team owner Jeff Vinik was selected in two different categories -€” best local citizen and best couple (with his wife Penny). Meanwhile, head coach Jon Cooper was voted as the best coach in town. The coaching results actually also painted the most discontent with coaching in town too; the runners up were former Buccaneers head coach Tony Dungy and former Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon… Both are long gone from their respective jobs in town.
There are a lot of categories and a lot of aspects that were voted on by Creative Loafing readers far beyond sports. You can view the full survey results page (and links that lead to each section of the survey) here.
