Tampa Bay Lightning, Chicago Blackhawks Battle for Best On-Ice Projection During Stanley Cup Final

How will Lightning top Blades of Steel tribute in NHL championship series? Blackhawks hope to prepare another banner-raising show in the fall.>

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The Tampa Bay Lightning certainly aren’t the only NHL team to utilize on-ice projection to captivate their fans, but they very well could be the best at it—and we can’t wait to see what they’ve got planned for the Stanley Cup Final, which opens Wednesday at Amalie Arena.

The Lightning have plenty to live up to after their Blades of Steel parody during the Eastern Conference Finals vs. the New York Rangers, but we trust they’ll come up with something equally—if not more—awesome before facing off with the Chicago Blackhawks for the right to take home Lord Stanley’s Cup.

Maybe they’ll harken back to the days when their VP and general manager Steve Yzerman was the best thing on the ice in the actual NHL and virtual world. Or they might go in a completely different direction.

Their fans are surely hoping the good times don’t stop rolling after the pregame projection ends, but teams like the Buffalo Sabres—who won a CI Integration Award last year thanks to Westbury National Show Systems—and Vancouver Canucks, which called on Digital Projection in 2012, are proof there’s more to winning a Cup than a flashy show.

Photos: Inside Tampa Bay’s On-Ice Projection Show

For the casual hockey fan, these on-ice projections, both in Tampa Bay and in the Windy City, could be enough to get them to tune in for the pregame show and maybe see what other technological tricks they’ll incorporate into the action.

Surely, the Blackhawks staff is hoping they’ll get to put together another show for a banner-raising ceremony like the 2013 one after they won the Stanley Cup the previous summer.

But there’s only one way to find out which team is the best on the ice this year and that’s by playing the games—no, not the video games.

To get you in the mood for the series, here’s a look at the Lightning’s Bolts of Steel tribute to the classic Konami video game Blades of Steel, which is actually older than the franchise itself, having debuted in 1988:

And here’s what the Lightning did with their on-ice projection system earlier in the Stanley Cup Playoffs this year:

View photos of the Lightning’s on-ice projection show.

UPDATE, June 3, 10 a.m. ET:

The Blackhawks won Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final, 2-1, but the host Lightning got the night and the series off to an electric start with this pregame on-ice projection. Thanks to Krystle Murphy of AVI-SPL, who was at the game supporting the home team, for sharing it with us on Twitter.

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