Beyond the locker room, beyond the ice, beyond the goal posts and above the stands, there’s a team up in the PA booth running the sounds, the lights, and the off-ice displays that are a big part of the game day experience at Amalie Arena and it’s the audio, visual, graphics director and game-day host, Greg Wolf and his AVL team and the experience they create for the fans through the game presentation.
And the Lightning AVL crew were recognized for their elite game presentations on Wednesday when they were awarded the 2025 NHL Stanley Award for “Best Game Presentation” by the National Hockey League.
“It’s everything that you experience in the bowl on game night,” said Wolfe to Kyle Burger of ABC Action News.
Wolf’s team consists of more than just him, but as he describes it, he has a “well-oiled , 60-person machine” beside him. The experience begins at Thunder Alley:
- In-game host Stephen
- Public Address Announcer Paul Porter
- National Anthem Singer Sonya Bryson
- Organist Kristoph
- The Blue Crew
- Morning Anchor Deiah Riley, host of the “Lightning’s Community Hero Segment.”
And these are just a few of the names that put together the Game-Day Presentation team at Amalie Arena that spend so much time each season planning the experience they want to provide, to strategizing all of the pieces to make it happen, to putting the pieces together and making it happen when the lights come on for the first game of the season and figuring out how to tinker it and continue to improve it each game.
“It’s way more than just a game on the ice,” Wolf said. “It’s an absolute experience. It’s not just coming in and watching the game, it’s experiencing the fans, the fun engaging things that we have in between the plays, the player pieces, vignettes, the contests,” he said.
There’s a reason that every professional team has a game day production or game day promo team, and that doesn’t just include hockey. The Washington National, for example, are known for their race of the presidents, which you actually have to audition to do each season. That’s not a role they give to just anyone because of the importance of it each game day.
In each sport there’s commercial breaks, there’s mandated water breaks, and times that there is nothing happening on the court, ice, field, whatever the venue may be. And it’s up to the teams to keep the games entertaining.
The display that the Lightning puts on ranks a top of other hockey teams and in 2025, they did enough to be crowned Stanley champions! The Lightning were finalists for the award in 2022 and 2024, both years falling short to the Vegas Golden Knights. 2025 was the Lightning’s years.
And now they will take the glad-made award and have it on display for all to see in the year that they play in the outdoor game.
The next time you can experience the Lightning game day experience will be October 9, 2025 when the Lightning play in their 2025-26 home opener against the Ottawa Senators.