Raptors adjust to life in Tampa due to virus rules
TAMPA, Fla. ( AP) — Just like last year, the Toronto Raptors are opening the season at home, against the New Orleans Pelicans, and every available ticket for the game has been sold.
It’s exactly the same. And entirely different.
The Tampa era — it’ll last until at least early March, maybe the full season, nobody knows for certain yet — of Raptors basketball formally opens Wednesday night, when the team plays host to the Pelicans. Unlike last season, when more than 20,000 fans crammed into Scotiabank Arena on opening night, Wednesday’s matchup is expected to draw a socially distanced 3,800, the maximum permitted right now at Tampa’s Amalie Arena according to the health and safety protocols put in to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.
For the Raptors, it feels like home. It looks like home. It is home, for now.
“We are all creatures of habit. Familiarity is where we thrive,” said Teresa Resch, the Raptors’ vice president of basketball operations and one of the guiding forces behind the team’s move to Tampa.
“And the more familiar you can make it, the more comfortable you are, the better you are able to perform and ultimately that’s what we’re trying to do here is we’re trying to grow as an organization and perform our best.”
The Raptors and those who are assisting them in Tampa have tried to simulate the comforts the team has at home in Toronto, at least as much as possible. “We The North” signage is everywhere in the hotel that the Raptors will use as a practice facility, from the elevator
doors to the ballroom wall behind one of the baskets. The court that the Raptors will use for games came from Toronto. And there’s a 2019 world championship banner swaying from the rafters — alongside the Tampa Bay Lightning’s retired jerseys for Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis — at the same end of the court as the Raptors’ bench.
The banner immediately caught the eye of Raptors coach Nick Nurse when he checked out the surroundings.
“Hey, the banner! It’s kind of cool,” Nurse said.
The Raptors needed a new home because the U. S.- Canada border remains closed to almost all non- essential crossings because of the pandemic. Many cities lobbied; Tampa wound up being the pick in a move that added to a hectic sports year for the city which has seen the NHL’S Lightning win the Stanley Cup, baseball’s Rays reach the World Series and the NFL’S Buccaneers land Tom Brady in a season where Tampa also plays host to the Super Bowl.
“The Toronto Raptors and their fans will not be disappointed here in Tampa Bay,” Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said
The last time Tampa was on the NBA’S schedule prior to this season was in 2010, when Miami and Orlando were supposed to meet there in a preseason game. The matchup wound up getting canceled shortly before game time because someone used an oil- based soap to clean the court and things got slippery. This is already off to a better start.
The Raptors are raving about the arena setup. The practice facility, constructed in a hotel ballroom — very similar to what the NBA put into use during the summer restart at Walt Disney World — has many of the same things that the team has in Toronto. The Raptor mascot is performing at games, the starting lineups are announced the same way, and Nurse can walk to work now, which he enjoys.