In Gary Bettman’s NHL, Owners don’t actually ‘own’ their teams.

For the low, low price of 200-500 million dollars, however, they can call themselves owners and get to do… whatever the Comissioner tells them.

Seriously, these guys are like four decimal points away from owning a McDonalds rather than a sports franchise.

Posted by HockeyinHD on 06/22/09 at 08:02 PM ET

So it was Bettman, then, that made pull the PR move of hiring Melrose, over spend on unproductive offensive talent and trade their best defenseman and leave their defensive corps in shambles all while over stepping their bounds on every aspect of hockey management, something they clearly know nothing about? I love how everything comes back to Bettman’s fault for some reason. Pittsburgh Wins? Bettman’s doing. Tampa faltering? Bettman’s doing. War in Iraq? Yup, there’s Bettman with a bucket of oil and a m-16. Sometimes hockey fans are really stupid and uninformed.

Posted by Seriously? from IL on 06/22/09 at 08:27 PM ET

If all of this is true, let’s hope Len Barrie wins. I’m tired of hearing about these Vinny trades and our payroll going to the minimum. How is that going to make our team better?

Posted by Josh from Tampa on 06/22/09 at 08:32 PM ET

I love how everything comes back to Bettman’s fault for some reason.

You’re an idiot.

OF COURSE Barrie, Koules, or whoever else the dimwit is/was running the team out there are the ones responsible for the Lightning sucking.

The point, you toweringly misguided jackass, is that if it’s their team THEY SHOULD BE ABLE TO BE AS STUPID AS THEY WANT TO!

Bettman (or ostensibly the BoG) approved these idiots in the first place, right?  Their check cleared, right?  Oh, but now that these two morons have suddenly found out that they have no idea what the hell they are doing, it makes sense to fly a third moron out there to try and mediate between the first two?

What, was Schemp booked?

Wow, what a HUGE, HUGE surprise that a couple people who buy a hockey team in the freaking south suddenly turn out to be dolts who don’t know anything about hockey.  Whoa.  What. A. Surprise.

Oh yes, but Gary Bettman will ride into town and figure out which of the two idiots is slightly less of a brain-dead jackass than the other one he approved is.

There is no reason for Gary Bettman to be meddling in the affirs of an NHL team.  None.  Zero.  Unless they are breaking a league rule of some kind, and since the last I checked being terminally stupid wasn’t against a league rule (hi there Stan Kroenke and Pierre Lacroix), then Gary Bettman should stay the hell out of it.

Oh, wait, that’s right… Gary Bettman meddles in all kinds of team business.

Totally my bad.

Posted by HockeyinHD on 06/22/09 at 08:59 PM ET

Unbelievable how this franchise has been run into the ground.

Posted by DigitalGypsy66 on 06/22/09 at 09:29 PM ET

The NFL certainly seems to largely leave its owners along to be idiots if that is what they want to do with their teams.  No need to look any further than the woeful Lions, who were 0-16 last year and many fans figure they only won any games before that year by accident.

The NFL front offices have not taken over the team, or told William Clay Ford that he is a senile old man who should not be making decisions about the management of the football team, or demanded that he fire Matt Millen many, many years before he did, because the team is owned by Ford, and among the rights of ownership is the freedom to make stupid mistakes.

And honestly, Gary Bettman has enough to deal with without needing to babysit squabbling owners.  His role shouldn’t be to decide between them, but to tell them they bought the team, it’s theirs now, and they are (allegedly) adults and should be capable of mediating their own disputes.  If not, and the team flops, they will have no one to blame but themselves - and if the attendance drops too far, I believe they will lose some of the revenue-sharing dollars.  They took over a team that was a little shaky but had a decent history and a fan base, and have proceeded to try their best to rip it into tiny little pieces.

The commissioner shouldn’t be meddling, and the ownership group shouldn’t expect a parent to come in and pick who is in charge.  They are acting like spoiled brats - but as adults, it is their right to be stupid.

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 06/22/09 at 09:29 PM ET

My guess is the koules-aid-man wants to dispose of one marty and perhaps a vinny while barrie does not (I don’t think it’s the other way around).  This will not end well…for the lightning but probably for the teams that pick their proverbial bones.

Posted by stoneman from vegas on 06/23/09 at 01:41 AM ET

Unbelievable how this franchise has been run into the ground.

Posted by DigitalGypsy66 on 06/22/09 at 10:29 PM ET

One of the more disturbing things to have happened.  Five years ago they were celebrating a Stanley Cup win and Tampa was averaging 20,000+ in attendance.  Now?  Faltering, a house divided and owners seeking to destroy each other while the team crumbles around them with no guidance at all.

And it took a year for it all to come undone.  Horrible.

Posted by HockeyJoe from Upstate New York on 06/23/09 at 02:10 AM ET

And it took a year for it all to come undone.  Horrible.

Posted by HockeyJoe from Upstate New York on 06/23/09 at 03:10 AM ET

It’s always easier to destroy anything than build it.  It took years to build successful teams like New Jersey, Detroit, Colorado - wrecking the same takes comparably very little time.  That’s what makes me uneasy when anyone talks about turning around a franchise so quickly, because statistically it is more likely to go wrong than right.

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 06/23/09 at 05:43 AM ET

You’re completely right, HockeyinHD.  Why would the commissioner of the league want to find out why one of the strongest teams in the league a few years ago is being run into the ground overnight?  Why would he want to have some accountability for a franchise that was a beacon of Southern franchises just a couple of years ago?  That makes no sense at all.  Where does he get off?

I also appreciate your sly backhanded “Southerners don’t know shit about hockey” comment.  I totally forgot that I don’t know a damn thing about hockey until you pointed out that I live below the Mason-Dixon line. Good call, you diminutive, over-bearing douchebag.

Posted by Mike @ MHH from Oklahoma City, OK on 06/23/09 at 09:19 AM ET

Why would the commissioner of the league want to find out why one of the strongest teams in the league a few years ago is being run into the ground overnight?

Anybody with half a clue knows why the Lightning suck, Mike.  It’s not exaclty something that requires a face to face to get to the bottom of, you know.

Why would he want to have some accountability for a franchise that was a beacon of Southern franchises just a couple of years ago?

Why should he want that?  Even more to the point, why should he be involved in that at all?  The Commissioner of a league should not be trying to ‘fix’ the idiot teams in his league.  That’s not what a Commissioner should be doing.  It creates even more of a cloud of bias and manipulation around Bettman than already exists, if that’s even possible.

Why is Bettman trying to ‘fix’ things in Tampa, but not in Colorado?  Or Atlanta?  Or Florida?  All of those teams are run nearly as bad, if not worse, than the Lightning are.

I also appreciate your sly backhanded “Southerners don’t know shit about hockey” comment.

That wasn’t the point of my comment.  The point of my comment was that hockey support in the south is notoriously soft and shallow.  I’m sure there are individual people down there who know hockey, just not enough to support NHL teams, by and large.

So, when a couple of people cluelessly buy an NHL franchise in a region with said notoriously soft and shallow support, it gives me something of a clue that they don’t exactly have a grasp of the product they are purchasing.  Something that was immediately supported by the subsequent occurance of a half-dozen decisions that can’t be made by anyone with even the faintest grasp of the NHL.

I totally forgot that I don’t know a damn thing about hockey until you pointed out that I live below the Mason-Dixon line. Good call, you diminutive, over-bearing douchebag.

Thank you.  I thought so too.

Posted by HockeyinHD on 06/23/09 at 09:41 AM ET