‘A treasure chest of a jersey’: Lightning Stadium Series threads nod to Jolly Roger and Bolts lore

Tampa Bay Lightning fans have awaited this moment all season, and the treasure is finally here.

The Lightning on Thursday—in partnership with the NHL and Fanatics—revealed the design for their 2026 Navy Federal Credit Union Stadium Series jersey, which the team will wear when outdoor hockey comes to Tampa and Raymond James Stadium on Feb. 1 for a matchup against the Boston Bruins.

To the person who played a central role in designing the threads on the team side, the latest addition to the Tampa Bay Sports store is one of the most “standout” jerseys in the organization’s history.

“This one's going to stand out,” Vinik Sports Group Chief Venue Officer Kevin Preast said of the threads. “And this one is going to speak to our brand with an exclamation point.”

That exclamation features a color that has never been featured on a Lightning jersey before now, a sky blue threaded between finer details that celebrate both the history of the team and the Tampa Bay area.

The Lightning organization and the NHL combined ideas for the jerseys, which aren’t merely merchandise, Preast said. They offer a chance to tell the story of Tampa and outdoor hockey in a nontraditional market, one that’s developed into one of the league’s champion cities.

When it came down to detailing the jersey, the focus was on that storytelling:

"We've got a very strong lineage of winning and being very blue and having our distinct marks. Everything is very clean, and there's not a lot of nuances to it. If you look at some of the NHL logos, they have a lot of fine lines, while ours is a very clean, bold, succinct statement. We wanted to stay with that,” Preast said.

"This is the first time we've ever hosted an outdoor game, and we're in a non-traditional market. So how do we make it big? And then we thought, ‘We've already played outside once. How do we pull some of the cues from that?’"

Fans might recognize the font that spells ‘TBL’ on the front logo of this year’s jersey, as it matches the ‘BOLTS’ from the team’s 2022 Stadium Series jersey.

This time though, the Lightning opted for a new home shade of blue to pay homage to a new atmosphere in their home state of sunshine and blue skies.

“How do we make this different than anything else we've ever done? How do we stay true to ourselves but also be innovative? We're bringing in the sky,” Preast said. “We've introduced a sky blue color into that space. We added a new color that we've never had in our color palette before, which led to some other things.”

Among those other details include flashes of Lightning bolts within the lettering, the Stadium Series logo serving as the shoulder patches and more.

Despite not being a Gasparilla jersey, it does nod to the annual Tampa celebration that is slated for the same weekend as the game—there are threaded beads in the jersey’s neckline so fans can don their figurative beads to the game, and the jersey’s loop tag is made to simulate a tattered flag from a pirate ship.

The jersey sleeves feature a Jolly Roger-inspired skull with a Lightning bolt serving as the crack in the skull. Those sleeves are debossed with a singular Lightning bolt as well to pay homage to Bolt For Life members, also connected by a string of beads.

“We had ideas that were going to be the perfect complement to bucking the system and playing outside,” Preast said. “In collaboration with our partners at the NHL and Fanatics, we questioned each other. We wanted to be different. We wanted to make sure that we weren't just checking boxes, that we were challenging the status quo.”

‘A treasure chest’ of a jersey

The formal jersey design process took four to five months, though the idea of an outdoor game in Tampa has been tossed around for about the last decade, according to Preast.

Typically, Stadium Series jerseys step outside traditional jersey designs and challenge norms while still honoring notes of the past, whereas Winter Classic jerseys usually stick to honoring heritage, according to Preast.

“Everything's a little bit bolder because we're playing hockey in a football stadium or a baseball stadium,” Preast said. "So, we're approaching this with the mindset of, ‘How do we make this bigger? How do we make this really have some size and some grandeur?’”

Jersey ideas for an outdoor game had been considered for a long time. Even two years ago, these jerseys would have looked much different, Preast said.

Some of that includes new technology such as the debossing of the sleeves that wasn’t possible a decade ago. That might be Preast’s favorite part of the jersey, though he said it’s hard to pick one because the design is a “treasure chest” full of intricate details.

“I think the beads in the collar. It's so subtle, but we've never really done something outside of our brand in that space and it's so true to the timing of the game. And then the flag is just something that made sense. The tattered flag is synonymous with a pirate ship and pirate life or the Jolly Roger,” he said. “I think it's small and subtle. It's not a signature part of the jersey, but it's definitely another hidden gem inside what’s a treasure chest of a jersey.”

The usual Lightning jersey design is clean and simple boldened by deep, dark colors. The Stadium Series jersey will challenge that, but it will also pay homage to the success the organization has seen alongside the community it hopes will celebrate the outdoor game with them.

They will be able to do so in a jersey unlike any other Bolts threads donned before.

“I think the key is, the jersey is a combination of a lot of things in its simplest form,” Preast said. “It’s adding the sky blue to represent being outside but being true to our previous outdoor experiences and being true to who the Tampa Bay Lightning are every single day of the week. I hope it's something that they're as excited about as we are.”