TAMPA, Fla. -- A flash of false lightning cracks through the air above Gary Cross' head.
The purple electricity hung high near the rafters, a sign for the home team's goal that would only streak twice for Wednesday night's Tampa Bay Lightning loss.
"On cold nights it's almost electric in here," says Cross.
For four seasons he's stood in that exact aisle, ushering in ticket holders with access to Chase Club, section 219. He's seen more than 300 games and he's seen how the team has changed.
He holds up his forearm where the hairs always stand up, like the crowd, when that thunderbolt streaks overhead. He, like many Amalie Arena for Game 3, say the NHL's Eastern Conference Final is theirs for the taking and is quick to credit the Bolt's head coach, who brought the team to the Stanley Cup finals last year in his second full season with the young team.
"Cooper has created a total new atmosphere," Cross says before the puck dropped on Tampa's 4-2 defeat. But the Bolts evened the series 2-2 with Friday night's win.
Amelia stadium workers, fans, reporters and friends move between the friendly abbreviations of Jon Cooper's name - Coop to many - when they explain what the Prince George man has meant for their city.
Cooper left Prince George at age 15, and even now, several decades later, people say they still hear about his beginnings.
In Vancouver, Bolts beat reporter Erik Erlendsson would often hear Cooper invoke his hometown.
"He talks a lot about his roots and where he came from," says Erlendsson, who has been covering the team for 16 years, now a freelancer after the Tampa Bay Times bought out the Tampa Tribune earlier this month. "He talked about what it meant for him growing up, a smaller community, as a lot of Canadian kids, that's where his passion for the game sort of grew."
Cooper's style as a coach can be described as the "uncle approach" - one that can both be tough and playful.
"He is a phenomenal manager of players," says Erlendsson. "His self-admitted x's and o's are not the strength of his coaching style, but the way he handles players, it's unprecedented really."
He's a player's coach, says sports anchor Tom Korun.
"I think Jon does an excellent job of being able to push the right buttons to motivate the right players, those players to motivate the other players," says Korun, who has covered hockey for Tampa Bay ABC Action News since the Lightning launched in 1992.
"He's the guy running the engine, that pushes the button and gets the guy in the caboose ready to go."
That style hasn't quite jived with some, says Erlendsson, pointing to forward Jonathan Drouin's departure in January, but you can't argue with winning.
"Not only does he win, he wins championships," Erlendsson says.
Cooper, 48, practiced law until 2003 and as coach of the Texarkana Bandits, led them back-to-back North American Junior Hockey League Tier 2 national titles in 2007 and 2008. Two years later he added a Tier 1 national title with another team and then led the Lightning's top farm team in the AHL to the Calder Cup in 2012.
After Tampa's loss Wednesday, Cooper spent seven minutes addressing a lacklustre performance by his players who were badly outshot by the Pittsburgh Penguins.
"You don't fluke your way to the final four and they've got a heck of a team over there. But they put their skates on one at time just like we do," said Cooper.
His supporters say his success isn't a fluke, either.
"He brings a maturity, a calm to the team and the whole organization," says Joe Mole, proudly wearing his blue jersey with the white jagged symbol. "I think he has the absolute confidence of the Lightning fans."
Those who deal with him on the day-to-day praise his humour, directness and ability to communicate, though sometimes his way with words doesn't quite fit with the quick clips best suited for TV.
"I'm not sure we've ever had a 15-second sound byte from him," laughs Rob Allaer, video producer for the Tampa Bay Lightning for the last 11 seasons.
When Cooper came on board, Allaer says he was like a shot in the arm for the organization.
"He had new ideas and a new philosophy... You can see the benefit," says Allaer, gesturing to the game below. "He gets a lot of the credit."
Korun says Cooper could cast the credit a little wider, should his team win the coveted cup. Cooper has said in the past he would bring that hardware north to Prince George.
"I would say if this team were to win the Stanley Cup, all of you won it with him," says Korun to Cooper's hometown fans. "It would be his first (Stanley Cup), but where did he get his start? Where did he grow up? Where did hockey become a fabric of his life?
"He'll go all the way back."
-- with files from Ted Clarke
Samantha Wright Allen was in Tampa to take part in a journalism seminar at the Poynter Institute.
