Faceoff Factor

12 Days of Hating: Day 9

Mike Wilson | National Hockey League

Dec 21, 12:13 PM | Hype this story!

On the ninth day of Christmas, my true hate gave to me…Oren Koules and Len Barrie.

The fourth biggest hate of 2008: Len Barrie and Oren Koules singlehandedly ruin the Tampa Bay Lightning organization.

Barrie and Koules hate patience

So this is what happens when you let the producer of the “Saw” series run a hockey team. So far, the Tampa Bay Lightning have ended up like victims in Koules’ movies: scarred for life and badly beaten.

Everyone thought these guys would be great for the job. After all, their experience is stellar. Len Barrie is a former NHL player and Oren Koules’ other team under his ownership is currently 17-5. What you don’t see is that Barrie only played a total of 184 games in the NHL for four different teams. And Koules’ other team are the Helena Bighorns who are number one in the Nor-Pac, which is the Northern Pacific Hockey League. Need I say more about experience?

When they arrived in Tampa, the two new owners stuffed the stockings with shiny, new overrated players and gave out huge paychecks. They brought in the best combed mullet in the business and told him how to do his job. Things didn’t go the way they liked, so they fired him.

Instead of building a team, they bought up all the leftovers and made a stir fry of unhappiness in the Forum. They expected their free agent all-star team and their franchise OHL recruit, combined with a plethora of players from the 80s as coaches, to go out there and win every game because that’s how Hollywood sees it.

Those of our readers who are German of heritage are probably aware of a character named the belsnickel. This was a creature dressed like Santa Claus, but was, in actuality, an evil, coal-stuffing impersonator who visited only bad children on Christmas. I think Barrie and Koules can be classified as belsnickels; they first gave the appearance that they were going to make things jolly in Tampa, but then they just made all their fans cry.

We begin the top three hates of the year tomorrow, the tenth day of Christmas, when keeping players healthy in the ‘burgh is harder than it should be.