Lightning news, well not really news

It's been a little dull in the Lightning world since Saturday. Here's some newsy things about Saw VI, Oren Koules and James Wright:













Saw VI
Losing the #1 spot at the box office to Paranormal, Saw VI opened this past weekend in the #2 spot to a weak $14.8 million, which is a drop from the average $30 million openings for Saw II through V. But don't feel bad for Koules/Lionsgate or anything, the film only cost $11 million to make, so they'll see a profit. If you think this means the end for the Saw franchise, think again, it's already in pre-production for Saw VII.

Oren Koules
Q. Besides the Saw franchise, do you know what else Oren Koules is the exec producer for?

A. Two and a Half Men

No one talks about Two and a Half Men, only about Saw, which makes me wonder why. Anyways, so besides being busy during the opening weekend of Saw VI, he also threw an after party for Saw VI at his wife's newly opened restaurant "Wonderland". I like how he keeps the money in the family, which would make him the type of guy that would give out tickets to Lightning to his friends for Christmas (this may or may not be true).

Will he stay or will he go?
Thursday night's game is the 10th game of the season, which means that if the Lightning don't intend to keep Wright, then they would be sending him back to juniors before he plays his 10th game. Once he does play it, no matter how many games he ends up playing going forward, he is able to count one year of pro hockey played out of his 3 year entry contract, which will affect his FA status in the future.

Even if he plays his 10th game, the Lightning can still send him back down, but clubs rarely do. But from what I've read, which really hasn't been much, it seems like he will be staying.

Tocchet says that he expects to have Wright in the lineup for Thursday. Some gushing words from the coach:
"He's 19 but you wouldn't know it," Tocchet said. "He's a very mature kid. It's a credit to his family and his parents, he's such a mature kid. He doesn't get too high or too low, that's what I like about him. He's wide-eyed on the bench, and I'm telling you he's been a pleasure to coach."

Wrighter says he would be excited about staying: "If that's true, then I'd be ecstatic," Wright said of staying past nine games. "It's something coming to camp, you know it's a long shot, but it's something I've been waiting for. I've been working hard the whole time to try to stick with the A group."

I don't know if keeping Wright will hurt the Lightning in the long run, burning through the 1st year of his contract this fast, but the question for the Lightning should be:
Will Wright gain anything from being sent back down to play in the juniors? Or is the NHL the best option?

Lightning "Green" night

I know that we are making a push for being green as a society...but there's something about $5 tickets that seem to scream pre-Phoenix Coyotes situation to me. We saw the same promotion last season as well, but that was when we were completely sucking. Now, well, we've won 2 games in a row....so I'm still hopeful.

But to run a promotion like this, against a team like the Sharks, it's a little embarrassing. A little air of desperation? Like vodka with hockey tickets?

I know that management is just trying to get as many bodies in seats possible, because a little bit of money is better than no money, but once it catches wind to fans with teams with sold out venues or fans of Canadian teams, well the fan boards just eat it up and make Tampa seem laughable.

Oren Koules to take lead in ownership race

The St. Petersburg Times is reporting that Oren Koules, with real estate investor Jeff Greene is making a push to buy out Len Barrie. Bill Daly confirms that Jeff Greene has filed a league ownership application with the NHL. Green says that he has "the funds available to do this transaction".

Len Barrie has apparently been in talks with a St. Louis real estate developer named Anthony Sansone, but Sansone has not yet filed an ownership application.

Elliotte Friedman and Erik Erlendsson are both reporting that Len Barrie's window to buy out Koules has now closed. The best line out of Erlendsson's article is that "Apparently, nobody informed Barrie.", which actually seems very fitting with the Tampa Bay management saga. Barrie apparently thought he had until Wednesday to buy out Koules.

When informed later Monday of the league's confirmation he was out of the picture, Barrie responded in a text message to The Tampa Tribune: "We'll see. I guess I would be happy to get my $40 million."-TBO.com

Awesome. He sounds unmoved by the fact that he missed the deadline. But I guess I would be happy to get back my $40 million too if I thought I had lost it all. $40 million is better than no million. Maybe Barrie planned it this way, sounding like he was interested in buying out Koules long enough to get some other investor interested just so he can re-coup his money to get out of this money sucking black hole investment. If he did, genius.

Len Barrie on the outs?

The Globe and Mail today has an article about more trouble with Len Barrie's investments and according to a source, he was unable to put together a deal to buy out Oren Koules for ownership of the Lightning.

A financial accusation of misuse of funds was made by a former auditor of Bear Mountain Resorts. It says that Barrie used some company money to buy the Lightning, though Barrie denied it and said the money was repaid to Bear Mountain.

Also interesting:
"However, sources close to the executive committee and the auditor’s report tell a different story. One source with knowledge of the committee’s deliberations said Mr. Barrie may soon be replaced as CEO of Bear Mountain by an interim leader from a Toronto company that specializes in corporate rescues.

Mr. Barrie at first denied he was being replaced as soon as today but then said “a couple of different possibilities” were being discussed"

Barrie has until the end of September to put together a package to buy out Koules for ownership of the Lightning before Koules will a get a chance to buy out Barrie.

I think we are going to see the end of Len Barrie the Tampa Bay Lightning owner very soon, which is too bad, because I kinda like the idea of two guys playing armchair GM's for real. It didn't really work out for the team's success, but it was neat to see an ownership group who was touted as being passionate about hockey. Though incidents like this makes me question where the NHL was when they reviewed their application as owners. Another incident of failed ownership reflects badly on the NHL because most of us and news media haven't forgotten about 'Boots' Del Biaggio yet.

Would you be miffed if your friend owed you 3 million?

I bet you would.


















Does this man owe you money?

Len Barrie has repaid Oren Koules the 3 million that he owed, and I can assume that this will help smooth out their friendship.

I can't stand owing money to people. Even when I owe people $20 bucks for covering dinner or something I try to pay people back as fast as possible because I hate the feeling of owing money.

Imagine if you owed someone 3 million? I wonder how you bring that up... "Hey Oren, so buddy, I'm gonna need for you to cover my side of the payment to the NHL about the team that is currently loosing buckets of money....how much you ask? Well...just spot me 3 million..."

That conversation must have sucked. But now it has been confirmed, by text no less to Damian Cristodero that the sum has been paid back. It's nice to know that the beat reporter is on constant texting basis with Koules. Is this a cost cutting measure by the newspaper or are they just chummy? Will DC not get to go on the road with the team and instead just text the owner? It just seems to weird to confirm the information by referencing your text that you received from the owner. I guess I can be ok with texting as long as he doesn't reference twitter as a 'source' in the future. I will draw the line.

If you have ever wanted to read about how Len Barrie came to own/develop Bear Mountain Resort, there was a piece that was written in the business section of the Globe and Mail back in March. It's a little long, but interesting to read.

Trouble in Paradise...

So I wasn't going to write until tomorrow at the earliest since I have been enjoying my time off doing non blogging things...like reading and hanging out with my dad for father's day. It has also been pretty slow news-wise with the Lightning and I really didn't want to write another draft or Vinny post because really, they just seem pointless these days.

But then, via Lightning Shout, the St. Petersburg Times confirmed the rumours about the bickering going out between Lightning owners Koules and Barrie. Tomorrow, Bettman will hold a meeting with the two owners to give the authority to make decisions about the team to ONE of them.

Romano writes something at the end that I found really interesting:
But, today, the fissure seems wide. The talk is that Koules wants to keep Lawton as GM, wants to trade Lecavalier to get out from under his $85 million contract and wants to pare the payroll to the low $40 million range. Barrie is not as solidly behind Lawton, wants to build around Lecavalier and is in favor of signing some free agents to get the payroll closer to $50 million.

I've always thought that perhaps it was Barrie who made all of the early decisions about the team last year, and then Koules that just ended up taking over the day-to-day stuff when they hit the point that they really just couldn't fix the team mid-season (and Barrie was still up at Bear Mountain). Perhaps I was wrong. If Barrie is wanting to build the team around Lecavalier and spend more than just the salary cap floor, then I think this is a step in the right direction.

I mean really, could this year get any worse than last year? Or did I just jinx myself by asking that?

Lightning and Lemaire

The Lightning is apparently still interested in bringing in Lemaire as a senior consultant, but the team has yet to offer a contract or even discuss the parameters of the position. So really in other words, this is gonna take as long as Tocchet's removal of "interim".

I still don't understand why the Lightning would want to bring Lemaire in. He is known for the trap hockey that the Wild has played since he has been coaching there. Yes he has been able to get the Wild to the post season, but never far a long with the trap style. Rick Tocchet wants to play an up-tempo style next season, so what how will Lemaire help with his consultation? Maybe he can offer points about how NOT to play hockey. The only reason I think the Wild fans put up with that style for so long is that they were afraid that if they stopped buying tickets, *poof* and their team would disappear again.

Lightning Open House May 11

The Lightning will host a "Town Hall Meeting" at the St. Pete Times Forum from 6-9pm. It's open to the general public and season ticket holders (who get more benefits)
-Beginning at 6pm there is a used equipment sale for player gear
-Andrej Meszaros will sign autographs from 6-7pm
-Q&A with Oren Koules, Brian Lawton and Rick Tocchet at 7pm
-autographs with Paul Ranger from 8-9pm
-You can take a photo with Thunderbug which must mean that they have hired a "new" Thunderbug

More info can be found on the Lightning website or on Damien Cristodero's blog

Do you want to invest in the Lightning?

Well if you are, and you don't mind taking risks with your money or like to play arm chair GM, well do I have an offer for you!

In all seriousness, the Lightning ownership is looking to bring in additional investors to bring down their debt load.

Damian Cristodero suggests that adding an additional investor would help alleviate the pressure of Lecavalier's big contract that kicks in July 1st.

Gainey calls Lawton & Ownership 'disgraceful'

The Globe and Mail reports that Bob Gainey says it was 'disgraceful' behavior that Lawton and the Lightning ownership group leaked the names that were involved in the trade talks the Lecavalier transaction.

"We had discussions with Tampa Bay, we had an agreement with them that I got a call early in January with a list of names from their team that they wanted to talk about, and those players ended up public because they used those names to take them to other teams to see if they could create a different trade for Vincent Lecavalier," Gainey said at his end-of-season news conference. "I think it was disgraceful that Josh Gorges and Tomas Plekanec and Chris Higgins have to read that stuff."
-Sean Gordon from the Globe and Mail

I know that Gainey is just trying to come up with excuses for his hockey team's embarrassing 100th year, but it's interesting to see that he decided to come out with this to the media.

Dear Mr. Koules...

As many of you have read on Raw Charge, Oren Koules went on radio last week and spoke about the team, the Canadian media and bloggers. If you haven't heard it yet, you can get the link from Raw Charge.
If you don't want to listen here's the basics: Oren
1.was surprised that he couldn't put together a great team even though he spent a lot of money
2. ripped into the Canadian media
3. ripped into bloggers and their 'opinions'. Example:
-“I think blogs, have really …given credence to that. All of a sudden if someone writes something on a blog, you know, someone that pays $29 for an Internet connection, and all of a sudden people now quote somebody that’s in the blog
-People say something about me, you know, or about our organization, even big time mediums, I always say the same thing. Did they call me? My phone didn’t ring.

John at Raw Charge posted this rebuttal. It's well written and I can agree with what he says.

For myself, I would like to explain the reason I started blogging about the Lightning. I have been a quiet Lightning fan for a number of years, which let me tell you is actually quite hard to do when you don't live in Tampa. It has always been hard for me to find out information on a team and have had to rely on various websites for my information. The Lightning website has been, well lacking in comparison to other NHL team websites. The media coverage of the Lightning has been minimal as hockey just isn't getting huge coverage in the local area, though I do owe their beat writers a lot of credit for covering the team as well as they can. The bloggers (fans) who did write about the Lightning added to the information I was looking for. After attending a game this year against the Lightning in Vancouver, where I wore the away jersey, I decided to start writing about the team. It was because of the lack of information about the Lightning that I decided to write about them.

Mr. Koules talks about how so much of this year has been blown out of proportion from the Canadian media and what they have said about the Lightning organization. I live in Vancouver, Canada, so I am regularly exposed to the Canadian media. I would like to point out that the Canadian media are just doing their jobs. In Vancouver, hockey is our dominant sport (we do follow cfl football and soccer in the off season). If you turn on the local sports talk radio station, they talk hockey hockey hockey. From 6am in the morning till 7pm (when the game gets aired) and then finishing off with a post-game show till 11pm, well it's all hockey. If you like another sport, you might want to go live somewhere else. So Mr. Koule's, the Canadian media do a great job of digging up stories. Yes they may blow it out of proportion sometimes, but it's their job. It is because people want to read/listen/watch about it, that's reason they do it. If there was no demand for it, the newspapers would shuts down (ie. Colorado), reduce staff or make reporters take furloughs (ie San Jose).

The trade rumours of Vinny Lecavalier started because the management group tried to shop him. I don't blame you for trying to see what you could get, but when the package offered by Montreal/requested by Tampa was printed, the Tampa organization seemed to downplay it as just a 'rumour'. I know I heard that more than one team was interested in that trade, but with Lecavalier being Montreal born, it was the Vinny to Montreal headlines that really took off. The 'rumours' would not have persisted so long if there wasn't some basis to them.

From what I have written so far on The Hockey Bay, I feel that I have been very fair to the Lightning organization. I have tried to provide the same type of information to other fans that I look for. There will always be a blogger out there that will take his/her opinion to the extreme but I feel those are in the minority.

Some other organizations have welcomed blogger's as "alternative media" into their marketing game plans. Bloggers in Washington have been granted full-season press credentials to the Capitals. Some bloggers for the Canucks get their stories featured on the frontpage of Canucks.com or have been used in the marketing to fans during in game stories, allowed interviews with Canucks staff or on bus/billboard ads.

Do you not realize that blogs are free publicity for the Lightning? I write this for free. I write this blog because I like the team. I am a fan. I would much rather be writing stories about the Lightning's playoff success rather than writing about what's going on in the off season. And as for no one contacting Mr. Koules, well hate to break it to you, but I have no way of doing that. MY e-mail, on the other hand, is on the right side of this blog and I would be more than welcome to any ideas of how blogs can be a help to the marketing of the team. Blogs are just a voice of the fans, and people that read them are fans of the team.

Barrie wants bigger role, the Lightning are DOOMED

**Updated**
Yes you read that right. The Globe and Mail printed today:

VANCOUVER -- Len Barrie, co-owner of the Tampa Bay Lightning, wants a hands-on role next season running one of the worst teams in hockey - as soon as he can sell a major real estate development in British Columbia.

"I'd like to have more of an involvement on the day-to-day stuff [in Tampa]. You can only do so many things."

This may be one of my worst fears for the team realized. I cannot see how more of Len Barrie will help the Lightning. I am just at a loss for words.

-April 18 2009
So I've given this a little bit more thought. There's one part of the Globe & Mail article that I find amusing:
'Barrie is president of the NHL team. A Tampa newspaper this month said he's mostly been invisible and hasn't been in town much, and was silent as the storm raged - but he has been known to micromanage from a distance and get closely involved when he's been in Tampa.' -The Globe and Mail

As fans we knew that Len Barrie was micromanaging the team for a while. Everytime there was a new trade, you knew they were coming from owenership rather than the GM. I've always felt that most of the moves was more of Len Barrie than Oren Koules. I have nothing to support that idea, but it's just a gut feeling. From what I have seen so far, I'm not optimistic about him having more control. As far as I'm concerned, and owner owns a team. He should hire the best people to run the team. Owners are not the person who should react hastily to the team's progress or decisions. Owner's HIRE Gereral Manager's. When owners step in, as a fan, and try to be an armchair GM, the team is doomed to fail. You hired a GM, his name is Brian Lawton. If you do not trust for him to take the team in the right direction, find another GM!

$5 tickets to the Pens game if you bring a phonebook

The Tampa Bay Lightning will offer huge discounts to the Pens game on Tuesday if fans bring in an old phonebook. If you bring one to recycle, you can purchase a lowerbowl ticket for 20 bucks and an upper bowl ticket for 5 bucks!

I understand how these tough economic times need joint marketing strategies, but here's an excerpt from the Lightning website:

"The St. Pete Times Forum continues to be a community leader in recycling and energy conservation. The recycling of used phone books saves a large amount of space in harmful landfills annually."

But 5 dollars to see the Pens? They are, since the trade deadline, arguably one of the most exciting teams, this match up should sell itself. PD questions if the phonebooks are to help St. Louis reach the top of his locker.

I understand offering steep discounts for the last couple games of the season just to get bodies in seats, but did they really have to partner with a paper shredding company? The headline on the Lightning website just degrades the hockey game and the team.

Lawton and Management Answer to Fans

Before the Ottawa Senators game on Sunday, Brian Lawton and Oren Koules took an hour during their Fan Appreciation Day, to speak with some "specially selected" fans. I think by specially selected, they meant season ticket holders who haven't yet renewed their tickets for next year. OK Hockey tried to step up and show accountability.

Not much has been said about how they answered their questions, or what was actually asked. A 'news' article was up on the Tampa Bay Lightning website today, but clearly was posted by management, so some nice media spin on it.

Lawton hopes to bring to the team: aggressiveness paired with a high IQ, and to strengthen the D. Tocchet the other day said he wanted guys who "push back", which are great ideas, but how we will achieve all this in the off season waits to be seen.

They also say that we are not in the rebuild phase. I think they realize they can't sell 'rebuilding' to Tampa fans like the Kings or the Leafs are able to.

I would love to hear what questions and what answers were actually said during this 1 hour session, but I haven't been able to find out much about it.

Although I'm pretty sure it wasn't this (spun by the Lightning writers):
"After answering every question with honesty, gratitude, and even a touch of humor, Lawton and Koules thanked everyone in the crowd for attending and listening to the organization’s blueprints for success, while also sharing their thoughts and feelings about the team." -from the Tampa Bay Lightning website

-Len Barrie was not part of the Q&A. I've heard some rumors about a possible falling apart between Barrie and Koules, but again they are just rumors. Barrie I'm sure is dealing with economic housing crisis as is everyone else in that market and the fact that his team sucking the first year didn't help their relationship. I don't think he skipped out on the Q&A, but rather didn't want to stir up trouble while Koules and Lawton tried to answer to the fans about the terrible season.

Lawton throws paper at Caps fans...

Not just any type of paper, no, he threw game notes at Caps fans. Lawton clarifies that he was just throwing them in response to fans that had thrown stuff into the suite first.

Now let's think about what we just read. Did a GM throw paper at the fans because they did it first? Is he 3 years old? This was one of the most ridiculous things I've heard that a GM has done.

Fan Appreciation DAYS...

Notice the s at the end of days....not just fan appreciation night, no, in Tampa we have DAYS.

During the final four home games, starting March 24 against CBJ, the Lightning will have their fan appreciation days. They will play:

CBJ - Tuesday March 24

Senators - Sunday March 29

Penguins - Tuesday April 7

Caps - Thursday April 9

You know those last two are going to be good. It's too bad they don't fall on a weekend.

The promo of the event goes like this:

-All players will walk a red carpet into the rink 3 hours before the game

-Live bands in the plaza

-FanZone tent - kids can make Carrie Underwood signs for the Senators game, make that Hillary Duff signs too

-A charity raffle for jersey's off the players backs

-Thunderbug's ATV to be raffled off

-Autographs

-etc.

Now what is the best part I read?

$2 beers and $1 hotdogs!!!! Oh wait, there is also free popcorn, peanuts or cotton candy...and rubix cubes!

Ok, I'm getting a little excited. I don't think you really need to give rubix cubes away to children, do you want to distract them from the fact that the Lightning might lose 3 out of the 4 games? Or distract them from the KO that Malone will lay down some fire stick dancing player? Maybe that was Bettman's suggestion, so that he didn't have to explain to the kids what went on.

Now, where I'm from, $2 beers don't exist. Hell, neither do $1 hotdogs. I pay $8.25 for beer in a sippy cup. And last time I got hotdogs, for 2 premiums hotdogs, and a water I paid, 18 bucks, no joke.

I actually like this show by the management, it's great for the kids and this is one of the last things the current ticket holders will think of as we head into the off season.

Lecavalier: Hand Delivering Tickets

Now we all know that the 2009 season's tickets are now being sold for the Lightning. The Lightning website has been advertising for it about a week now on their website.

So on Monday, they started what they call the 'Goodwill Tour'. Players, coaches, broadcasters and executives are making surprise visits to 83 selected season ticket holders trying to get them to renew their package. Apparently even Oren Koules was out delivering renewal packages. No mention of LB though.














The players that were delivering tickets included Lecavalier, Stamkos and Malone, faces of the franchise. But imagine if you were got selected, and instead of Vinny showing up at your office/house, you get some VP in sales or a broadcaster?

I would feel gypped. GYPPED.

If I got LB instead of Stamkos? I would seriously consider giving him a piece of my mind. Y'know like an armchair GM to another fantasy GM, oh wait.....

But, from a marketing perspective it was a great idea. It shows the fans that the management actually are trying to care about their fans.

This was a tactic that was used by different teams during the summer. The Pens, Flames, Canucks and Sharks all delivered random season ticket holders' their tickets personally. It was all about the marketing, but a nice surprise if you ended up having Sidney Crosby or Dion Phaneuf show up at your door. It was a nice thank you to the fans for buying season tickets.

But this was a little different. The Lightning will have a tough sell trying to get fans to renew their tickets because well, the product this year, did not live up to the expectations, and well there is a recession going on ya know.

It will be an even tougher sell to get casual fans to buy season tickets.

But the owners are going to need all the fans they can get to help pay for the enormous salary of V4 that will kick in this summer.

Trade Deadline Lightning Style

What was the trade deadline for the Lightning today?

Two words: A joke.

Seriously, OK Hockey seems to be turning the Lightning into more of a circus. Or maybe they really don't care about fans. Or winning. Or their money.

So the trades today:
1. Mark Recchi & a 2nd round 2010 draft pick to Boston
- Not unexpected. But we threw in a draft pick with him for Boston to take him.
-Recchi does not find out that he was traded from Lawton, oh no, Len Barrie told him.

What did we get from Boston? Matt Lashoff (D) and Martins Karsums (RW)
*Is Martins Karsums more than one person? Or does someone want to tell him that both of his names are plural?

Lawton thinks both players are NHL ready, well Boston didn't think to play them enough to be, and I think they are still a little raw.

So far this deal is ok. We weren't going to resign Recchi for another year so I'll consider this deal an ok deal, but giving away draft picks is never a good idea, especially if your farm system sucks. It's too bad Karsums isn't really more than one person.

2. Steve Eminger traded to the Panthers for Noah Welch and a 3rd round draft pick in 2009.
-Noah Welch hasn't played much in the past 2 seasons because of a shoulder injury!!!
-Eminger has been one of the better of our defencmen. Why are we trading him AWAY?
-Did we just go from Boyle > Matt Carle + Ty Wishart > Eminger + Steve Downie > Noah Welch + 3rd round pick? Seriously?

After this trade I was convinced Lawton has been drinking too much of the Koules-Aid.

3. Olaf Kolzig, Jamie Heward, Andy Rogers and a 4th round draft pick to Toronto for Richard Petiot.
Who??? Well we just sent 3 injured guys and a draft pick for a guy who has played the last 3 years in the AHL.
That's right.

So this trade is not so much for a good player, more for a way for Lawton to dump a bunch of salary. Much like putting Roberts on the waiver wire (and not getting picked up), Burkie is eating up salary for the Lightning in Toronto. He's doing this all for the 4th round draft pick.

What does our defense look like now?
Lukas Krajicek, Cory Murphy, Josef Melichar, Matt Smaby, David Koci and Noah Welch.

Vomit.

Our defense doesn't have top 4 defencemen. And is Noah Welch even playing NHL hockey? Has he seriously been healthy scratched 26 times this season? Was it my imagination or did we have Boyle only a year ago? This management in a circus.

Now, I'm not saying I don't understand why management traded away a 30 minute a night defencemen named Eminger away for an RFA named juice, but it's hard to take as a fan. True, because Eminger is playing so many minutes, and has already 1.5 million dollars already thrown at him, and he's an RFA with a contract up this summer, and they have no money, and he's not a top 4 defencemen....well I see the bigger picture. But these next 18 games will be painful. And he plays 30 minutes a game!

But if someone could tell me why we traded for Eminger in the first place, it would be nice. I would like Boyle back. I'd like to take O'Brien back as well seeing as how well he's playing for Vancouver these days.

I read somewhere that all of these salary dumping is to get the Bolts under the cap for revenue sharing, but I can't find a good source for it. Whatever the case is, we know that Lawton isn't the one actually making these decisions.

Clearly "Management" ahem ahem, certain player turned owners, must think this a joke. It makes the team look like a joke. Can we even tank enough games to get a good draft pick? Does management realize that giving your fanbase a crappy team will not make fans want to pay to see the team, even it it's only for $5.69? (My thoughts on that will take up a whole other post).

In the end, the Lightning was a disappointment in the trades today.
Our defence sucks even more.
I hope Barrie enjoyed the night of entertaining his friends in Vancouver during his game that night, and taking them all out to his post-game party at his restaurant... if he keeps doing what he's doing to the team, he'll not only loose the fan base, but also money faster than you can say Phoenix Coyotes.