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The original product of "Tampacuse"

The affiliation between Tampa Bay and Syracuse has only been around for three full seasons but Syracuse has (indirectly) produced for the Lightning since its inception.

The nickname "Tampacuse" was bestowed upon the Tampa Bay Lightning and Syracuse Crunch development system as a byproduct of sorts. Tampa had been working on player development intensely since Steve Yzerman took over general manager duties in May of 2010, giving a new focus and weight to their then-AHL affiliate (the Norfolk Admirals) and its success or failure. When the Bolts founded an alliance with the Crunch in 2012, the Tampacuse moniker was coined by Bolt Prospects, a simple merger of the town names Tampa and Syracuse, and used heavily enough on Twitter that it went viral and became the unofficial nickname for the player development system for Tampa Bay.