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By Holly Neumann

If one word could sum up Nigel Kirwan’s life and times with the Tampa Bay Lightning, it might be unexpected.

He never expected that as a young man, he’d walk Tampa streets and give away game tickets out of a shoebox. But that’s what he did when the Lightning first came to town in the early ’90s, a job acquired through a friend of a friend from UT, who had a connection to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers that extended to a link at the Lightning.

“It was a career I fell into somewhat accidentally,” said Kirwan, a criminology and finance major who graduated in 1992 thinking he might go into the FBI.

Then, he never predicted that one day he’d be promoted from sales rep to video coach, handling pre-scout and game film, scouting reports and highlight reels for use by the Lightning coaches and players. But that’s what happened once Head Coach Terry Crisp saw Kirwan’s amateur hockey coaching clinics, a side gig successful thanks to Kirwan’s experience as a youth player in Canada.

“Honestly, he was a big practical joker, so I kind of threw him out of my office (when he offered the job),” Kirwan said.

He never imagined that he would see Tampa Bay Lightning flags, license plates, jerseys and signs everywhere he went. But since the hometown team became Stanley Cup champions, first in 2004 and again in 2020 and 2021, that, too, is what has happened.

“I don't think there's a day that I go through the city anymore where, at some point, I don’t see somebody with a Lightning hat. That never used to be the case for the first decade or so,” Kirwan said.

He also never anticipated the benefits that would come from rubbing shoulders with the sports world’s elite. The ride with the Blue Angels above Cape Canaveral. The VIP treatment on a U.S. Navy battleship docked in Tampa. The up-close look at the U.S. presidential limousine. The behind-the-scenes tour of the White House and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. But that all happened, too.

“One of the cool things about working in sports is the unintended consequences,” Kirwan said. “There's a lot of contact with outside entities that are interested in what we do. Like, I’ve gotten to do a lot of cool things with the military.”

At the Lightning’s most recent visit to the White House, an invitation for winning the Stanley Cup, Kirwan got a special surprise. Out of the blue, a secret service agent approached him.

“Are you Nigel Kirwan?” he asked, and for a startled, unexpected moment, Kirwan thought that maybe he was in trouble — or that he was somehow being pranked by another agent he knew.

“You’re not going to remember me,” the agent said, "but I lived in Tampa when I was a kid, and I did your hockey school for four years."

“And that’s how I became friends with another secret service agent,” Kirwan said.

While Kirwan loves having been a part of the Lightning’s arc and all its associated perks, he says his biggest career takeaway is “not the championships — and those are great.”

For the kid who grew up in a rink, who hoisted countless imaginary Stanley Cups over his head as he dreamed of victory, Kirwan’s perspective now from the top of the NHL is, once again, unexpected.

“It's the memories. It's the stories. It’s the shenanigans on the road. It’s the relationships at the end of the day,” he said. “That's been the biggest lesson.”