Tampa Bay Lightnings’ Thunderbug is working to inspire a new generation of hockey fans

ThunderBug visited school number 1,000 hyping up hundreds of students wanting to feel like they're part of the team. Students at Nelson Elementary, in Dover, got to go home with a hockey stick and ball from the Lightning as part of its Equip the Thunder Program. “It's tremendous. It really is. It's very, very gratifying and very rewarding... To be in a place like this, to have 700 elementary students all cheer, you get all excited. And again, each of them walking out of here today with their own stick and ball and a Lightning t-shirt and it's, it's pretty cool," Jay Feaster, with the Lightning, said. Over a seven-year period, 216,000 hockey sticks and balls have been given to 1st through 8th graders.