Lightning Owners Introduced, Entire OK Hockey Group Unveiled

Koules To Serve As Lightning Governor

MEET THE OWNERS: In addition to Koules, a movie producer, and Barrie, a former NHLer and Bear Mountain Resort President & CEO, the following six make up the OK Hockey ownership group: Koules' business partner and movie producer Mark Burg; Ft. Lauderdale-based Zimmerman Advertising Founder & co-Chair Jordan Zimmerman; Kane's Furniture CEO Irwin Novack; St. Petersburg-based The Sembler Company Exec Chair Craig Sher; L.A.-based Chanin Capital co-Founder & Senior Managing Dir Russell Belinsky; and St. Louis-based surgeon Richard Lehman. Lehman, who was Lightning Medical Dir from '00-02, and Zimmerman also are minority owners of the NHL Panthers (ST. PETERSBURG TIMES, 6/24).

GOOD FIRST IMPRESSION: In St. Petersburg, Gary Shelton writes Koules yesterday "hit every high note." Koules "came across as confident and eager, as knowledgeable and ambitious, as passionate and bright. If pro sports ownership was an elected office, you would approve of his inaugural address." Shelton: "You get the feeling Koules won over some skeptics." Koules said that there was "never anything" to the rumor of a possible Lightning relocation. Koules: "We will never move this team. I hate Vegas." But now Koules and the ownership group "face the hard part: They have to prove themselves." Shelton writes of OK Hockey, "Financial stability? Check." But the Lightning "will still be a budget team, which means it isn't likely to spend to the cap." Barrie: "Our goal is to win" (ST. PETERSBURG TIMES, 6/24). Meanwhile, in Toronto Damien Cox reported the Lightning Saturday on the second day of the NHL Draft selected D David Carle, even though Carle Friday circulated a letter to all 30 NHL teams that he was "withdrawing from the draft because he had been diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy," a heart ailment. But Koules "knows the Carle family," so the Lightning "took Carle anyway, just so he'd be able to say he was drafted into the NHL" (TORONTO STAR, 6/22).

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