The Tampa Bay Lightning have a quality team, a winning team, a likely playoff team in the National Hockey League, more fans than most in the NHL, a pleased administration, some swell stars who do neat things for humanity off the ice, and no Michael Vick.

You read and saw how the gifted Atlanta Falcons quarterback was said by police to have sought to take a bottle of water on a plane — a bottle of water with a booster in it.

It was confiscated. He was not arrested. Possession of 20 ounces of marijuana likely can get you fined. He won’t be by the police. Clearly if this is true, the quarterback is a lot smarter in carrying a football than speed.

The Falcons — their, our former, Rich McKay, the GM boss there, will take care of it, with the NFL overseeing.

What Vick gets out of this is bigtime bum publicity for himself and his team, an unofficial rap sheet, a lot more doubters in Atlanta (he was booed after his last outing and shot birds at the fans, word was), a changed reputation, and future scrutiny.

Well. The NHL Lightning have had no such problems and aren’t likely to do that.

The team is smaller, of a vastly different background, close to their fans in the games at the St. Pete Times Arena (and all of the others in the NHL), play a game in which one mistake, lapse, error, can cost your team a game. One. There are fewer on the team, fewer stars, fewer on the ice at work.

“Not likely to happen to us, such a thing,” said Lightning President Ron Campbell, asked. “And we don’t want it. I tell anyone who wants to know, the biggest headlines come from bad deals. Do something wrong, and you got the biggest headline. Look how it has followed Terrrell Owens around.

“A lot of our players come from small towns, that makes a difference and I keep coming back to the team being smaller and seeing each and their fans more often and close up,” added Campbell. “Our players are more interested in the game and kids. They all sponsor kids groups at our games here. Some of them have individual foundations.”

The Lightning Foundation overall is big (more than $1.6 million) already) and successful, notably its link to Tampa General Hospital and minors, in need.  Vinny Testaverde, Brad Richards and Martin St. Louis are, at the moment, the three biggest stars and all are heavy into foundations and other charities.

“No, we don’t have any special guys who want publicity in any way except on solid play,” said Campbell. “Now I know, Vick didn’t want that publicity.  But, then, you have to say, stay away from such stuff.

“I do say hockey is different because it is a smaller team.  You mess up and it is more likely to hurt your team than in football. So, perhaps that’s a reason too for our good name. You don’t see that kind of carrying on anywhere in the NHL.

“Now,” he said, smiling, “I have never seen anywhere a group of people that can drink a six-pack of beer faster. I don’t say they don’t get rowdy, but on the beer. They, really, are quite young. Hey, even on smaller teams like basketball, you dribble and shoot like crazy, that’s one shot out of 200. Your screw up in hockey is far more likely to be more important, to cost you the 2-1 game. They are told that. They know that. And, they don’t want to be the one to screw up like that.”

Also, Campbell said, the Lightning players, like management, enjoy being in Tampa and on this team and want so badly to win.

“Think about it. We have a Stanley Cup in no time. Chicago hasn’t had one since 1961. Toronto, the hockey capital of the world, hasn’t had one since 1967.  We all love it. Our attendance averages out at about 19,000 at home. Some others wish they could do that good.

“Maybe that is all part of the belief of mine we don’t have any Michael Vicks on our team.”

Lightning fans, happy now with the record, will be happy to hear that, too.

But, they will be happier with a win at Carolina tonight.