Tampa Bay’s First Hockey Team: Suncoast Suns – The Hockey Writers – Tampa Bay Lightning

St. Petersburg, Florida, knows hockey. The Tampa Bay Lightning have been in their backyard since 1992 and even played within its city limits from 1993 to 1996. But that’s not when the city, colloquially known as St. Pete, got its first taste of professional hockey. The Lightning proved the region was viable, but they do not hold the honor of being the region’s first hockey team. That honor belongs to the Suncoast Suns in the early 1970s.

While the team’s time in St. Petersburg was short-lived, some still look back fondly at that brief moment.

Creation of the Suns and Brief History

The Suns are not the first pro team to play games in St. Petersburg either. The Jacksonville Rockets (also known as the Florida Rockets) played select home games in St. Petersburg in the late-1960s.

However, the Suns were the first team to call St. Petersburg their home city. Even then, St. Pete was not the team’s first choice for their home. That was Raleigh, North Carolina, now an NHL city in its own right. When an acceptable arena couldn’t be found, the ownership group turned to the Bayfront Center in downtown St. Petersburg.

The Bayfront Center showed it was suitable for sports when it hosted ‘The Floridians’ of the American Basketball Association (ABA) just before the Suns came to town. Its capacity of 5,800 was respectable for its era.

According to the Tampa Tribune, the name Suncoast Suns was chosen by a panel in July 1971 – “Suncoast” because it represented the region, not just St. Petersburg (‘Suncoast Suns for hockey club,’ Tampa Times, July 26, 1971). It sounds weird, at least nowadays, that they chose “Suncoast” over “Tampa Bay.” However, “Tampa Bay” as a sports regional moniker wasn’t a concept yet. That started with the Buccaneers of the NFL a few years later, in 1976. So, Suncoast it was.

In media coverage of the incoming hockey team, they had to hammer the fact that it was specifically ice hockey. You know, that Canadian sport. Here is a sentence from the Tampa Tribune that was printed in a bolder font than the rest of the article to make sure it stood out:

‘Bayfront has ice and one more time, this is to be an ice hockey team, not roller skates, not field hockey, ice, as in Canadiens, Black Hawks and puck,’ (from ‘The Icemen Cometh, Tampa Tribune, June 3, 1971).

Here we go.

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