Running for the next seven days on Twitter — which of these four championship trophies in North American sports is the least relevant to fans? Which of these four pro championship trophies is most irrelevant to sports fans? — John Fontana (@Johnny_Fonts) January 25, 2018 Retweets are appreciated…as is voting!

In light of recent events from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Martin Luther King Jr. Day took on a weight even if the (alleged) remarks of Donald Trump were geared at people of color outside the United States. There’s been mixed response and inaction by members of the Legislative Branch toward theRead More

Some of the history of Tampa Bay Lightning hockey was touched on with my endorsement and love shown in the Vincent Lecavalier piece last week. The seed that Phil Esposito planted has taken firm root in Tampa Bay as the true forefather of hockey in non-traditional markets. Yeah, the AtlantaRead More

Just a tune by an indie artist on his debut album, Thoughts, that I discovered on Lonely Oak Radio last year. While his SoundCloud post of the song has been widely discovered, I was the first to cross it on YouTube this evening.  Enjoy. [embedyt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFNLChOm3eM[/embedyt]

I don’t know what’s more disgusting: The Dotard in Covfefe, Donald J. Trump’s “shithole country” triad in the Oval Office of the White House in front of and with a multitude of others (…or we wouldn’t know about this), or those defending the statement in an ignorant response: “If itRead More

“Grand Marshal“, why does that seem such a fitting title for Vincent Lecavalier who was drafted by the Tampa Bay Lightning 1st overall in the 1998 NHL Draft, ventured through the hell of a lost franchise, the warfare of conflict with John Tortorella (and calm bestowed upon the pair byRead More

This is where the proverbial countdown of 100 acts from the Music Tampa Bay 2017 list comes to its pinnacle with the top-voted songs from their web site. These are the folks who’s songs represented here were most often voted to remain in the weekly Top 40 voting chart displayingRead More

We’re now in the top 50 of Music Tampa Bay’s Top 100 from 2017 with today’s post. You can find 100 through 76 and 76 through 51 by clicking on those links. Let me stress here that the Top 100 list was compiled by way of voting on the MusicRead More

As the annum that was 2017 drifts off into the history books, its stories and stats are reflected upon in one way or another in a multitude of categories through the world. The facts of the year-that-was will be referenced and reviewed because… Well, it’s history and things that happenRead More

As the annum that was 2017 drifts off into the history books, its stories and stats are reflected upon in one way or another in a multitude of categories through the world. The facts of the year-that-was will be referenced and reviewed because… Well, it’s history and things that happenRead More

Happy New Year to one and all. May 2018 be an annum of achievement and positive happenings for you and yours. A little note to precede the National Hockey League’s 2018 NHL All-Star weekend for those attending as out-of-town fans and those exposed to the event through national media coveringRead More

AS a fan of the Beatles, I’ve read many different pieces of writing about those four Liverpudians, be that magazine or news articles in print and online or books… Many things that almost always touched on an album by another group and one specific musical composer from that group: TheRead More

It’s mid-December in 2017, just shy of the true middle of the 2017-18 season and there’s a noteworthy lacking going on. Oh, it is an on-ice failing but it’s not a singular player statistic or performance. It’s team unction and wins and losses. And inaction by the management and ownershipRead More

I kvetched recently about one little line of dialog hitting me in a painful way from the 1993 hi, The Fugitive. It was one sign of the on-the-go work that changed the script to the film we know… But one line irked me. What’s inspired this write up doesn’t irkRead More

{Intended as cross-posted at Raw Charge] In the early 1990’s, there was an entity available to computer-owning consumers called Prodigy. That (and others that weren’t as prominent on the market) wasn’t exactly an Internet access portal, but it was. Through limited means and a controlled gateway, people were connected online atRead More

To block @realDonaldTrump on Twitter is a means for the public ro show Donald Trump that his conduct is not acceptable.

  The intention here was to write a blog post leading in to this poll regarding the Tampa Bay Lightning / Syracuse Crunch affiliation. The lead-in got sidetracked on major league/minor league (IHL and NHL) affiliations for the Bolts and gets too far away from the simple poll question IRead More

There’s a special community radio station based in St. Petersburg that airs local music, to say the least. the 2016 Top 100 list and a Top 40 from this past summer.  EDIT: You can find the Top 100 page with each individual year of Music Tampa Bay here. Yet HurricaneRead More

Reddit isn’t just a message board. It’s also not a dump-all marketing destination either. As a long time blogger, I didn’t deliberately try to mine traffic from Reddit because I didn’t want to be the one who posted any of my written-content from my days at Raw Charge on majorRead More

Late this spring, curiosity and recollection started pushing in my head toward music and what was going on in the political and social spheres. This isn’t the 1960’s but with how much upheaval has been playing out regularly – race attacks, propaganda, lies and distortions, pitting business and profit overRead More

You ever love a movie and yet see a glaring error in a scene, be it a gaffe by an actor, dialog failure, or something physically taking place in a scene that marks it as a blunder from one degree to another? I’ve got that hounding me right now withRead More

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgiQD56eWDk It’s odd when a song takes a new dimension in your life and you sob while listening to it. I’ll admit, I’ve been locked on to The Beatles and their 1969 classic audio impairment suffered by chance mid-summer. Mr. George Harrison, who penned “Here Comes the Sun”, was inspiredRead More

Even if they aren’t into country music, my friends have been impressed. I’ve already unveiled it but here it is, all over again! A nineteen-year old poem converted into a would-be pop/country song! Slowly, Her Name Fades Away: Okay, so now what? Seriously, now what?

Do you really need to flesh out John McClane?Does a Die Hard prequel really fairly show how he ticks

I left Verizon Wireless in a huff this spring. I’d been on the service since 2011 or so on one of their plans for the deaf which knocked down the standard monthly price to just under $60 but charges for any and all calls that your phone makes. Add toRead More

Well, damn… Store.Starbucks.com is going away, but you can still find all your favorite coffee and merchandise at your local Starbucks® stores. This was sent via email this afternoon. It doesn’t reflect the frustrations that the store was causing me (and who knows how many others) this spring and earlyRead More

I just donated to UNICEF’s Hurricane Maria/Puerto Rico relief efforts. Join me, won’t you? https://t.co/LIegM6eaxJ — John Fontana (@Johnny_Fonts) September 30, 2017

Some see it as just a cry for attention. Others see it as a defilement of a national symbol and the country itself. Some don’t have the curiosity of what had led to many NFL players (and other athletes in other sports leagues, later musicians and entertainers) to take aRead More

“Relaxing, easy favorites… with less talk!” That radio pitch from how-many stations in collaboration or owned by the same company? Maybe I’m wrong on that, but “Warm 107 FM” / “Warm 107.3 FM”, “Warm 94.9 FM” all pushed he same type of easy-listening, or a toned-down variety of music fromRead More

How does a deaf composer get the attention of the music industry? Think about that for a minute, would you? It happens to be a serious question asked by a man who is currently sitting in an unsound situation. I’m not Ludwig van Beethoven – far from it – butRead More

As far as I know, this could have already played out but… One scene, out of context, that I find hysterical (in context and as part of the film, it’s still funny but not as serious) is the opening confrontation of Mr. Miyagi and sensei John Kreese in The KarateRead More

My reaction to the news of comedic legend Jerry Lewis’ passing two weeks ago was to urge friend son Facebook to make a donation to the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the organization Jerry work for with his annual Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon which aired from Sunday night of Labor DayRead More

I got Kent Wilson from FlamesNation to participate in the hockey blogger Q and A that I’ve been casually conducting this month. Kent’s one of the strengths of The Nation Network and blogging in general, having his hand in the 2014 “summer of stats”. What follows is a little insightRead More

It is a season for beginnings, and I don’t just mean the rookie class of 2017-18 (that’s a yet-to-truly-know brood; it’ll clarify in the weeks to come) but the franchise class of 2017-18. The birth of the Vegas Golden Knights is also the birth of professional sports in Las Vegas, NevadaRead More

This is a simple public service announcement because of a pretty simple flaw I see repeatedly coming from businesses or those who are trying to be pretentious and official in declarations online (via social media or on their own web sites): Unless you are in Arizona and a few otherRead More

One of the routine areas that draws fans to the web to find out what they can are rumors. Some are made up, some are hearsay, some are those casually expressed “I’m hearing…” remarks that you see on Twitter from major members of hockey coverage. The man at the bloggingRead More

A little piece of electronics fell a distance that was just over five feet.  60 inches of travel, making contact with a wooden floor. It wasn’t a heard action. It wasn’t an outright noticed incident either. It had fallen from behind the ear of this author as he sat onRead More

Continuing the Q & A series that was unveiled Wednesday, another of hockey bloggings assetss chimes in on life in covering not one but two teams in her blogging career. Laura Astorian, who has been a void of both the St. Louis Blues and the Atlanta Thrashers. It’s one thing toRead More

While I pour over headlines of the hockey blog universe on a daily basis, I’ve been noticing something missing in the summer of 2017 that usually runs as an ongoing series in the hockey blogosphere: question-and-answer sessions that don’t just run the course of talking about other teams, but illustrateRead More

With events transpiring today in Virginia, I want to take a moment just to state what I find is a truth in society:  People are people are people. No race is supreme to others, no gender tops the other, no sexuality makes someone better than another and no one’s beliefsRead More

The site known as Tampa Bay Online – www.tbo.com – has been around for decades. TBO was once tied to both Tampa Bay NBC affiliate WFLA News Channel 8 and former print publication The Tampa Tribune (both media entities were owned by Media General). Let me stress that with theRead More

I may have touched on talking about music (sweet music…music everywhere) but the topic of note is the one that my name is usually linked to: The Tampa Bay Lightning. Creative Loafing’s 2017 reader poll doesn’t lack nor neglect notable aspects of the Bolts – directly or indirectly – whichRead More

I’m a regular in a Reddit subgroup that represents the entirety of the Tampa Bay area, /r/tampabay.  Most of the citizens of the cities in the Bay area aren’t members of that group, they’re in the singular cities like /r/tampa, /r/stpetersnurgFL, or not in a city subgroup as all (hey,Read More

In a way, ice hockey can be much like soccer/futbol. Oh, I’m not comparing playing on an ice sheet to playing on a huge field of grass, nor players wearing a ton of gear to men in shorts and shirts and somewhat-regular shoes. It’s the fact there are so manyRead More

A man with no political experience finds his way into the Oval Office and becomes President of the United States of America. He’s got to learn more than just the day-to-day job at the office, which is vastly different from the day-to-day world which he’s used to. Yeah, that soundsRead More

The timing may seem a little odd to do this now as we are in the middle of the summer doldrums of the NHL and ice hockey in general, but this afternoon I’ve posted a little poll on Twitter asking  public opinion on coverage and broadcasting of the NHL onRead More

Can we stop playing games here and address an ultra serious situation in the United States of America at the moment? The national security of the nation has been compromised. Investigation and action are necessary to deal with the issue and that breach involves the acting President of the UnitedRead More

I’m an espresso guy. I don’t tend to drink standard coffee but I have shots of espresso, that’s my thing and it’s long-time been my thing. I’ve owned espresso brew machines that required me to get bags of coffee grind up beans myself and do extra articulation to make anRead More