NHL teams have Stanley Cup dreams every September when they go to training camp, but the Lightning actually won the Cup in September

The Tampa Bay Lightning won the second Stanley Cup in franchise history on this date in 2020, finally ending a tumultuous 2019-20 season that had been interrupted, to put it mildly, by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Brayden Point scored the first and winning goal in a 2-0 triumph over the Dallas Stars in Game 6 of the final series, which was played entirely in Edmonton due to international travel restrictions.

Blake Coleman also scored for the Bolts while Andrei Vasilevskiy made 22 saves for the shutout. Defenseman Victor Hedman won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the playoffs.

The 2020 post-season marked the first time the NHL had ever played games in August. It was also only the second time any non-exhibition games had been played in September. The first time was in 2007, when the Los Angeles Kings and the Anaheim Ducks played two regular season games in London, England.

The Lightning’s previous Cup win had happened in 2004, but they wouldn’t have to wait nearly so long for their next one; they repeated as champs in July 2021.

Also on this date:

1929 – Forward passing in all three zones of the ice was legalized by the NHL at its annual meeting in Montreal.

Allowing players to pass the puck in the attacking zone for the first time was designed to help generate offense. In 1928-29, the Boston Bruins had been the highest scoring team in the league, potting 89 goals in 44 games. Scoring champ Irvine "Ace" Bailey of the Toronto Maple Leafs won the title with only 32 points. Eight goaltenders had compiled 10 or more shutouts, with George Hainsworth of the Montreal Canadiens putting up 22 goose eggs along with a 0.92 goals-against average, two NHL records that will almost certainly never be broken.

Prior to 1929, teams could only advance the puck within their own defensive area, or in the neutral zone between the two blue lines. Passes could not be made across either blue line. Speaking of blue lines, the league also decided at the same meeting that the blue stripes across goal mouths would instead be painted red to make it easier for officials to see if a puck had completely crossed the line and entered the net.

The new rules accomplished their goal – pun intended. Scoring champ Ralph "Cooney" Weiland of the Bruins notched 43 goals, only one off Joe Malone’s NHL record, and his 73 points shattered Howie Morenz’s record of 51. Goaltending stats were much more reasonable, with Lorne Chabot of Toronto putting up a league-best six shutouts and Boston's Cecil "Tiny" Thompson leading all goalies with a 2.19 GAA.

1935 – It was reported that the New York Rangers would stage a tryout camp in Winnipeg. It was billed as a “hockey school” to be run by the team’s coach and general manager, Lester Patrick. The team was particularly interested in six players who had spent the 1934-35 season with the Brooklyn Crescents amateur team. They were brothers Neil and Mac Colville, Joe Cooper, Alex Shibicky, Murray “Muzz” Patrick – Lester’s son – and goaltender Bert Gardiner. All six eventually played for the Rangers, most of them as early as the next season, and all but Cooper and Gardiner were members of New York’s 1940 Stanley Cup-championship squad. Phil Watson and Walter “Babe” Pratt had also been invited to the fateful hockey school and were likewise part of the 1940 Cup champs.

1938 – The Detroit Red Wings announced that they would purchase the rights of 23-year-old right winger Eddie Wares from the Rangers and had sold 28-year-old defenseman Jimmy Orlando to the Springfield Indians of the International-American Hockey League. Wares had been the property of the Rangers, but the Wings took him on an option – basically a lend-lease program – during the 1937-38 season. As for Orlando, he went to Springfield but was back with Detroit in the fall of 1939. Both Wares and Orlando were part of the Wings’ 1943 Stanley Cup-winning team, then both left the club after that season to join the military.

1961 – The University of British Columbia announced that Father David Bauer, most recently the Memorial Cup-winning coach of the Toronto St. Michael’s Majors, had joined the university as a coach in its hockey program. Bauer had been transferred by the Basilian Fathers to the UBC-affiliated St. Mark’s College, and it was planned that he would handle the university’s junior varsity team and then take over as coach of the varsity Thunderbirds the following season. The timeline was sped up after the varsity team players spearheaded the early removal of coach Al Stuart. Within two years, Bauer took the sad-sack program to the Western Canadian university championship and to the final game of the University Cup, the national championship tournament. The Thunderbirds also became the base of the Canadian national team program that Bauer organized, beginning with the 1964 Winter Olympics.

1964 – Gary Bergman signed his first NHL contract with the Detroit Red Wings. Bergman had been the property of the Montreal Canadiens, but he never played for the Habs and the Wings selected him in the league’s annual Intra-League Draft in June 1964. Bergman was a solid fixture on Detroit’s defense from then on, playing in more than 700 regular season and playoff games over the next decade. He was also an important member of Team Canada during the 1972 Summit Series. Incidentally, Paul Henderson, entering what would be his first full season with the Wings, signed a new contract with Detroit on the same day Bergman’s deal was completed.

1973 – The Kingston Canadians made a successful debut in the Ontario Hockey Association Major Junior A Series – now the OHL – defeating the Oshawa Generals 6-4. Future NHL player, coach, and executive Mike O’Connell scored the team’s first goal at the 4:09 mark of the first period. The Canadians had been added to the league to effectively replace the Montreal Junior Canadiens, who had left the OHA to compete in the QMJHL in 1972. A Kingston ownership group purchased the dormant Junior Canadiens franchise, and the new team maintained its previous identity with Canadiens-themed uniforms, a ‘K’ replacing the ‘H’ in the famous CH logo. The Canadians finished 10^th in the 11-team league in their first season. Kingston’s OHL team has been called the Frontenacs since 1989.

1987 – Gary Suter of the Calgary Flames was suspended for 10 games, including the first four games of the upcoming NHL season, after an ugly incident during the recent Canada Cup tournament. In a game between the United States and the Soviet Union, Suter responded to being speared in the neck by Andrei Lomakin, swinging his stick like a baseball bat and hitting Lomakin in the face, cutting him for a reported 20 stitches. In addition to his four-game ban in the NHL, Suter was also to be suspended for the first six games of any international tournament he was eligible to play in. The International Ice Hockey Federation never honored the suspension, freeing Suter to again represent the United States in the 1991 Canada Cup.

1994 – Superstars Wayne Gretzky and Joe Sakic sharply criticized NHL commissioner Gary Bettman for the league’s hardline stance in the ongoing labor dispute with the NHLPA. With a lockout of the players looming, Gretzky lamented that the league’s recent efforts to establish hockey in the Sun Belt states would be all for naught if they couldn’t play. “I’ve worked too damn hard in this sport to help push the game,” said Gretzky, who had agreed to be traded from Edmonton to Los Angeles in 1988 with the idea of promoting hockey in non-traditional markets. “I hope it doesn’t all come crumbling down because one person wants to change the whole formula.” Sakic, at that time the captain of the Quebec Nordiques, was even more critical. “The owners are represented by a commissioner, Gary Bettman, who knows nothing about hockey and doesn’t care whether there’s hockey or not. He wants to do things his own way,” Sakic said. “Bettman doesn’t even know the star players in his own league.”

2000 – The NHL suspended Gordie Dwyer of the Tampa Bay Lightning, banning him for a total of 23 games for various transgressions incurred during a pre-season game against Washington. Dwyer “applied physical force to linesman David Brisebois,” who was trying to break up a scrum, left the penalty box to resume the battle, and in trying to get at his opponent again, “pulled referee Mark Faucette to the ice.” Dwyer was suspended for 10 games for physical abuse of officials, for 10 games for leaving the penalty box, and for three games for having received three game misconduct penalties.

2009 – Theo Fleury ended his comeback bid and officially retired from the NHL at age 41. Most closely associated with the Calgary Flames, whom he spent 11 seasons with, Fleury hadn’t played in the league since 2003, when he was suspended due to substance abuse. He had stayed active on skates, spending the 2005-06 season with the Belfast Giants of the Elite Ice Hockey League. He also played competitive senior hockey and competed in the 2005 and 2009 Allan Cup national championship tournaments. Following the latter event, Fleury sought and received reinstatement to the NHL after meeting with commissioner Bettman, and he attended the Flames’ training camp. Released on September 25, he took a few days before making his retirement official.