TAMPA, Fla. – The jersey hung for six years on the back of the door of Dave Andreychuk’s Amalie Arena office.
The vintage white CCM Lightning home sweater was customized back in 2004 after the franchise’s only Stanley Cup title. On the back, it read: “Bush. No. 1.”
It was a daily reminder for Andreychuk, 54, the captain of that Lightning team, of what the group had missed out on due to the lockout the following season.
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No victory lap as defending champs.
No ring ceremony.
And no trip to the White House to visit then-President George W. Bush.
The White House trips have become a rite of passage for champions of all major pro sports. Whether it’s NBA, NFL or NHL, the entire team would make the trip to D.C. for the typically once-in-a-lifetime experience. They pose for a picture and deliver a jersey to a sitting president.
The 2004 Lightning is the only NHL team that got robbed of that opportunity. The 2002 Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers didn’t get to go either.
Well, on March 1, the 2004 Lightning finally got some closure.
Andreychuk led a group of five, including three staff members from that team, on a visit to Bush’s Dallas office for a surreal 40-minute sit-down with the 43rd U.S. president.
They talked about their team, the 9/11 attacks, their connection with the military and, of course, Bush’s beloved Texas Rangers.
Andreychuk got to present Bush with his jersey, one he should have received 14 years ago.
“It was special,” Andreychuk said. “We thought it’d be a quick meet-and-greet. But he made us feel very welcome. To sit down with the former president for 40 minutes, not many people can do that.”
The Lightning championship team felt it was primed for a repeat.
Everyone was signed to come back in the 2004-05 season. The young stars like Vincent Lecavalier, Brad Richards and Martin St. Louis. Ruslan Fedotenko, the hero of Game 7 victory over Calgary. And the “Bulin Wall,” goalie Nikolai Khabibulin.
“We thought we had a great shot,” Richards said.
But with the lockout wiping out the next season, everything changed. Khabibulin left for Chicago in free agency. Tampa Bay tried for years to replace him, trading Richards and Fredrik Modin for goalies.
The Lightning still had a banner raising night in 2005-06. But rings were handed out as the year went on.
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At the time the Lightning would have gone to the White House, the NHL wasn’t allowing team-related activities. And some players were playing overseas, like Lecavalier.
So the Bush jersey was put in the back of then-Lightning president Ron Campbell’s closet. It stayed there until the Republic National Convention in 2012. Everyone had to do house-cleaning. That’s when Andreychuk, the team’s vice president of corporate and community affairs, inherited the jersey.
He didn’t hide it. He put it on the back of his door.
“I looked at it every day,” Andreychuk said. “It was always at the top of my mind.”
This year, however, the stars aligned. The Lightning were playing in Dallas on Feb. 28, and Andreychuk was going to be on the trip with a few sponsors. Public relations director Brian Breseman reached out to a PR contact, Kevin Sullivan, who now works at the George W. Bush Presidential Library.
“One guy knew somebody else, and it all came together,” Andreychuk said.
Bush’s reps told the Lightning they could bring up to five people to his office on the morning of March 1, before the team’s charter flight home. Andreychuk reached out to former teammates to see if they were interested. He wished he could have brought them all.
But it ended up being Andreychuk, head athletic trainer Tommy Mulligan, long-time video catch Nigel Kirwan, travel director Ryan Belec and editorial content manager Trevor van Knotsenburg. All but Van Knotsenburg were part of the ’04 Lightning team/staff.
Bush hosted them by himself. No aides. No security. It was intimate. It was informal
“It was a surreal experience,” Kirwan said.
When Andreychuk & Co. arrived at Bush’s office, which is six miles outside of downtown, they didn’t know what to expect.
They figured it would be a quick in-and-out formality.
Not even close.
Bush greeted them at the door of his 14th-floor office, which offered expansive views of the city. There were photos on the wall that used to be in Bush’s White House, shots of him at Camp David and with other international leaders. Bush sat them down at a coffee table and asked each one of them questions on where they were from, what they did. He personalized each conversation, telling Belec he enjoyed a flight on Miami Air, the Lightning’s charter company.
Bush knew a lot about the Lightning team, from Khabibulin to the lockout.
“He had done his homework,” Andreychuk said.
And Bush flashed his sense of humor. When Andreychuk brought up the early days of the Lightning franchise, one problem was …
Bush cut him off, joking: “Let me guess, the ice melts?”
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“He was pretty funny,” Kirwan said.
And Bush was open. The Lightning crew peppered him with questions on the terrorist attacks and the most difficult moments in his presidency. Bush took them through his experience on Sept. 11, 2001, from being told to get in the White House bunker to his first address to the American people.
“When he originally gave a speech to the nation, (his staff) wanted him to do it from somewhere else,” Andreychuk said. “He said, ‘No,’ he was going to be at the White House. It was a risky move, not knowing the situation.
“He was very adamant. The nation needed to see him standing at the White House addressing the nation. We all know how the day went for us, but to know how it went for the president of the United States, that was pretty cool.”
Bush’s eyes lit up when Andreychuk told him about the Lightning’s connection to the military and MacDill Air Force Base.
Then coach John Tortorella had set it up a visit early in the season to the United States Central Command in Tampa. The visit sparked that team’s rallying cry for the season, “Never leave a man behind.”
“It was a bunch of nations, not just U.S. — the Canadians talked to me, the Swedes talked to Freddy Modin — so it was a cool experience for them too,” Andreychuk said. “We went downstairs, saw a lot of things people don’t see. Sat in the general’s office. Obviously, it kicked off the season on the right note.”
Andreychuk didn’t think it’d take this long for the Lighting to hoist another Cup. Tampa Bay has only been to the Cup final once since 2004, losing to the Blackhawks in ’15. The current Lightning, the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, look poised for a run. Tampa Bay dispatched the Devils in five games in the first round and await the Maple Leafs-Bruins winner in the second round.
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“It proves how hard it is to get,” Andreychuk said. “The message I would be sending is, ‘This group doesn’t come around very often, you’ve got to take advantage of it.’ The way they’re set up, especially with the (Ryan) McDonagh trade, and J.T. Miller has been great. You’ve got to take advantage.”
Before the Lightning party left Bush’s office, the former president suggested they pose for photos. Each person got their own individual picture with Bush, who signed the 8×10 photos and sent them to the group last week.
With the original white Bush jersey showing its age, threads coming loose, the Lightning bought him a retro black CCM jersey from that Cup season. It read Bush, with the number 04.
Andreychuk had Bush sign the worn original jersey, the one that was on the back of his door for six years. Now it’s framed on the wall in his office. For Andreychuk, who owns a Cup ring and Hall of Fame ring, the Bush signed jersey is one of his prized possessions.
Andreychuk sees it every day. And now when he does, he smiles.
Joe Smith can be reached at [email protected]. Follow@JoeSmithTB.
(Top photo credit: The Office of George W. Bush)
