Charles Warner is licking the wounds of the Lightning's Game 1 loss as a Denver resident who took some playful ribbing from Avalanche fans.

“They would just go right up to my face and they would go ‘BOOOO!’ I don’t know how you respond to that – but they were pretty nice,” said Warner, laughing.

Warner has been in the Mile High City for a decade.

But his pucks and his heart still belong to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

He has a puck signed by every member of the 2004 Tampa Bay Lightning Stanley Cup champs in a hanging display, including the coach, John Tortorella.

There’s a lot about the Tampa Bay area difficult to replace, he said.

“We don’t have grouper sandwiches here, we don’t have the Cubans, we don’t have the cafe con leche, we don’t have the Lightning, but you have the mountains,” said Warner.

An even better consolation - his real live Colorado-born child - who also wishes to Be the Thunder.

“She is all in. Like she’ll sit here and you know she's playing her Roblox and doing things like a 10-year-old. But she’s watching the game,” Warner explained. “She’s dressing up her animals, and she is - she is all in.”

His hope - taking young Arya to a game in Tampa.

“Bringing her here, you’re in of kind the belly of the beast. I want to be able to take her to a game in Tampa so she can wear her Lightning gear and get to feel the electricity, pun intended.”

He’s happy to dive right back into the belly of the beast at Ball Arena for Game 2. But he’d like a little help.

“Normally I’m used to being a fan who’s displaced, and uh, wearing the jersey of the other team. But there was like 30 people wearing Lightning jerseys in that arena,“ said Warner. “And 20,000 Avs fans. So I don’t know, because you know what – I was alone!"