On Tuesday Night, The St. Pete Times Forum was half empty, not, as most optimists would say, half full. If you wanted to paint a picture of the struggling Southeast Division, this would be it. On a beautiful night, a sub-par hockey product was on the ice and there were endless promotions on big video screens distracting one’s eyes from the game.

In a city where teams are objectified as “fads”, the Tampa Bay Lightning are playing third and fourth fiddle right now. The NFL’s Buccaneers are in full swing, as is college football. And the ‘Cinderella’ Tampa Bay Rays have the buzz, the water cooler conversation and the hype around town as they prepare for their first World Series.

‘Feel the Heat’ has replaced ‘Stanley Needs a Tan’ as the hip thing to say around town. And the locals sport Mohawks and cowbells, not playoff beards.

Tampa Bay has been one of the few success stories for the National Hockey League south of the Mason-Dixon line. The Lightning have been near the top of the league in attendance, setting league records while playing at the Thunder Dome (now Tropicana Field) as their new palatial digs were being built downtown. They were the first club to have any type of sustained success in a market filled with retirees, transplants and people who can’t stand the winter months. And it all culminated with the franchise’s first Stanley Cup title in 2004, a product of shrewd ownership and the growth of franchise players like Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis.

As a franchise, the Lightning have done many things the right way, including a recent marketing campaign around top pick Steve Stamkos that was so successful, it essentially forced the YouTube sensation on the roster and into significant playing time, regardless of how ready he is for the NHL. But the club has hit a plateau, an identity crisis of sorts, as it enters its teen years. The league’s 2004-05 lockout, couldn’t have taken place at a worse time, even if the Lightning were seen as one of the initial benefactors of the salary cap system. An ownership change left the franchise in flux throughout much of last season and the housing market has hit Floridians as hard has the collapse of Frannie and Freddie hit Wall Street.

The end result? Tampa Bay’s attendance fell from third in 2006-07 to eighth in 2007-08. Through five home games this season the Lightning are ranked 23rd, at under 16,000 fans a game. Saturday night’s home game against San Jose will be the fourth time this season the Lightning will go head-to-head with a playoff baseball game.

Winning, as they say, is the ultimate cure for attendance woes. So it would come as no surprise that the Lightning's recent problems come as the team struggles to put a competitive product on the ice. The same would apply to fellow Southeast Division rivals Atlanta and Florida. And yet, those clubs that lose in the sunbelt find themselves at a distinct disadvantage from their counterparts in Canada, the Northeast, Great Lakes and the Midwest.

In these regions, clubs have a built in marketing advantage because the sport has been an institution for many since childhood. Most of us reminisce about days spent on backyard rinks, early morning ice times, the caravan of bags and equipment. And for clubs in traditional hockey markets, exposure to the sport takes place before exposure to the club. In the sunbelt, it’s the other way around.

So it's no surprise that six of the bottom ten teams in attendance last season came from "warm weather cities" and while the stats show that no team averaged below 80% at the box office, we all know that somewhere in the depths of hell, Ken Lay is smiling at how cooked those books might be. It should also be noted that five “warm weather” clubs finished in the Top 10 affordability according to ESPN’s Annual Fan Satisfaction Survey.

Hockey clubs shouldn’t feel the need to give away their product for free, but for those clubs in traditional markets, lacing up the skates is free marketing that doesn’t exist where ice doesn’t.

And in today’s dog-eat-dog society of sports marketing, NHL owners can’t afford to bring the product to the masses on their own. Which happens to be everyone's problem with NHL owners filling their pockets with expansion fees in cities where success is such an uphill battle. The franchises themselves don't feel the need to build a considerable fan base. What they, and their sales staff covet is Club Seating, Luxury Suites, Branded Naming Areas and “the experience.”

The “experience” at a hefty price. Just like the Lightning, the marriage of sports and marketing is also entering a plateau. Teams are quickly working to exhaust any and all sources of revenue from their buildings, television deals and corporate partnerships, having reached the point of over-saturation long ago. And as this happens, it will be the product on the ice, not the experience off of it, that determine the success and failure of the operation.

For example, in Tampa Bay, the local CW 44 sponsors 4 on 4 situations while Fifth/Third Bank has the 5 on 3's. In Carolina, EyeCare Associates sponsors the team's cheerleading squad, also known as the Storm Squad.

When you lose, like the Lightning have of late, it’s tacky. When you win, it’s barely unnoticeable. But if you're losing, there's a way to lose and be successful. When the Rangers lose, they’ll sell out because they’re in New York and have the support of the local business community. When the Canadiens lose, they’ll sell out because the team has history and tradition. If the Wild lose and sell out, it’s because hockey is etched in the culture of that state, from Pee-Wee to the Pro’s.

Clubs such as Tampa Bay don’t have that luxury, history and tradition. They don’t have that first-hand experience built into the local sports culture. Sure, they’ll try by holding ladies nights, kids days and anything under the sun to get people to the product, but they won’t risk the bottom line to do so.

So it leaves those franchises with one of two options, both of them costly but essential. Most of us in the hockey community believe it is the personal responsibility of ownership to build the game in their local communities. They need to be building rinks, giving away ice skates and hockey equipment, especially in non-traditional hockey climates. And they also, as the product grows from generation to generation, need to capture the next wave of fans by getting them to the arena and establishing a connection between the players on the team and the fans themselves.

This means giving younger fans the opportunity to purchase those expensive lower bowl and club seats at a portion of the cost. It means autographed sticks, jerseys and coaches talks, without having to buy club seats at tens of thousands of dollars over the course of the season. It means offering fans something, without making it look like they’ve won some contest, or sheer charity.

Sure, clubs are already doing this to some degree, but it has always been done with the best interest of the bottom line in mind. Clubs also don't want to risk offending already high-paying ticket holders, all in the name of filling already empty seats.

Once those hurdles are cleared, and clubs focus on their long-term potential instead of their day to day sales goals, will hockey show substantial growth in these markets. Until then, teams will grow, hit the plateau, like Tampa Bay has and drop off substantially between peaks and valleys determined by the product on the ice.