Hurricane Milton forces Bucs and Lightning to leave Florida early and other teams to alter games

The NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers and NHL's Tampa Bay Lightning have left Florida ahead of Hurricane Milton to practice the rest of the week.

The Bucs departed Tuesday, relocating to New Orleans, where they'll face the Saints on Sunday. The Lightning left for Raleigh, North Carolina, on Monday night to continue preparations for their season opener against the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday night.

Milton, currently a Category 5 hurricane, is projected to make landfall in the Tampa Bay area on Wednesday night.

The Lightning’s home opener against Carolina is set for Saturday night and is on as scheduled for now.

It's third time in the past seven years the Bucs have shifted operations to another area to avoid bad weather.

In 2020, they traveled to South Florida ahead of Hurricane Ian to practice at the Miami Dolphins' training facility before returning home to play the Kansas City Chiefs. When Tampa Bay's 2017 season opener against the Dolphins was postponed because of Hurricane Irma, the team chartered several planes to move players, coaches and families to Charlotte, North Carolina, to escape the storm.

This time, the Glazer family, which owns the Bucs, booked two planes for a traveling party of about 350 people and 31 pets that included players, coaches and staff who would normally travel to an away game. Staff also had the ability to include their immediate family members and pets.

The team also purchased more than 200 hotels rooms in the Orlando and Gainesville areas for employees and families who wanted to evacuate from their homes ahead of the storm.

At the college level, the American Athletic Conference announced that a football game between Memphis and South Florida at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa has been rescheduled from Friday night to Saturday. The conference plans to monitor conditions after Milton passes and adjust accordingly.

UCF's Big 12 home football game vs. Cincinnati remains scheduled for a 3:30 p.m. EDT kickoff Saturday in Orlando.

The Knights rescheduled events in several other sports, including shifting UCF's home volleyball match against Colorado from Wednesday night to Sunday. UCF and Arizona changed the location of Thursday’s women’s soccer match from Orlando to Houston. With Arizona set to play at Houston on Sunday and UCF scheduled to play at Colorado the same day, the teams agreed to play Thursday’s match in Texas.

UCF's men’s soccer match vs. Marshall was rescheduled from Friday night to Sunday. Other college events postponed include a women's soccer match in Boca Raton between Florida Atlantic and Rice; it was to be played Thursday and now will be played on Oct. 17.

The LPGA Tour postponed the qualifying stage of its LPGA Q-Series that was scheduled for Oct. 13-18 at Plantation Golf and Country Club in Venice, Florida. The tour said it would provide an update for the qualifying tournament after the storm passes.

“Our thoughts are with the entire Florida community as we prepare for the storm,” the LPGA said.

And in the NBA, a preseason game in Miami — which is not expected to feel hurricane conditions, but is likely to get strong wind gusts and several inches of rain — between the Heat and the Atlanta Hawks was pushed back from Thursday to Oct. 16.

Also, countless high school sports events scheduled around Florida were called off. In many counties, officials were waiting to see what would happen with football games scheduled for Thursday and Friday.

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AP Hockey Writer Stephen Whyno, AP Golf Writer Doug Ferguson, AP Basketball Writer Tim Reynolds and AP Sports Writer Fred Goodall contributed to this report.

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AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports