Lightning Strikes -- Tampa Bay makes the Stanley Cup Finals

The Stanley Cup finals begin in Florida on May 25.

Every sportswriter and television sports reporter will bring out their best cliches.

No, not the tried and true standards like, "one game at a time" or the famous "our backs were against the wall."

he two teams playing for the Stanley Cup are the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Calgary Flames.

Sports media people will be rolling out the cliches like, "Lightning Strike the Flames" or "Flames scorch the Lightning."

Or, how about the popular cliche that's sure to be a hit this Stanley Cup season, "Lightning extinguish the Flames."

Seriously though, these finals should be very exciting. More exciting than anyone might imagine actually.

For one thing, hockey fans will see two of the leagues most exciting players, Calgary's captain Jarome Iginla and the Lightning's ball of scoring fire, Martin St. Louis, who proves the theory, good things do come in small packages.

In hockey, it's all about the goaltending, and both teams have two of the goaltenders of the future in Calgary's Miikka Kiprusoff and Tampa Bay's Nikolai Khabibulin (aka "the Boolin wall"), who seems to have found a new lease on life on Florida's west coast.

Speaking of finding the fountain of youth done in Florida, if you were to ask Tampa Bay players and fans who was the inspiration for the team, they would point to Lightning captain, Dave Andreychuk, who is in his first Stanley Cup final in his, believe it or not, 22 year career.

Calgary, on the other hand, has their own version of baseball's Reggie "Mr. October," in Martin Gelinas, though he can be called "Mr. Overtime," for the winning goals he's scored in overtime this NHL postseason.

The veteran Gelinas has gone down this road before and knows all about "sipping from the Stanley Cup."

Ironically, Gelinas has his name engraved on the Cup as a member of Calgary's hated rivals, the Edmonton Oilers.

Finally, there are the two coaches.

The Lightning are coached by Massachusetts born native, John Tortorella, who should win the Coach of the Year award in the league for the job he's done with a mix of veterans and young stars on the team.

His relationship with Lightning All Star, Vincent Lecavalier was rocky to put it nicely, but now all that has changed.

Lecavalier has gone from "who dat" to one of the future stars in the league today.

Then there is Flames coach, Darryl Sutter, he of hockey's first fame, the Sutter brothers of nearby Viking, Alberta, Canada.

Last year at this time, Sutter had gotten fired from the San Jose Sharks. This year, with Sutter coaching the Flames, the Sharks are now watching the Flames and their ex-coach represent the Western Conference for the Stanley Cup.

Who said payback wasn't a you know what?

How far this series will go, no one can predict.

We do know that both teams are capable of scoring -- a lot.

One other thing we do know is that a lot of reporters will be bringing out the cliches like there is no tomorrow.

So sit back, enjoy the ride and, pardon the pun again -- watch Lightning strike the Flames.