Lightning Co-Owner Barrie Speaks Out About Melrose's Comments
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Barrie Says He Wants "War Of
Words" With Melrose To Stop |
Lightning co-Owner Len Barrie yesterday disputed Barry Melrose's assertion he "was being told whom to play" while he was coaching the team earlier this season, and Barrie called Melrose's preparation for the season "total negligence," according to Damian Cristodero of the ST. PETERSBURG TIMES. Melrose commented on his tenure with the club on a Toronto radio station Tuesday, and Barrie said that he wants the "war of words between Melrose and the team ... to stop." But he added, "I wanted to respond for our organization and our guys." Barrie said of the team's 4-0 loss to the Panthers the "day after Melrose walked out of practice and three days before" his November 14 firing, "That was the final nail in the coffin." Barrie "admitted he and Melrose 'were never as close'" as Melrose and Lightning co-Owner Oren Koules, who hired him. Barrie: "But my thing is you're paid to do a job, and he didn't do it from day one" (ST. PETERSBURG TIMES, 12/11). In St. Petersburg, Gary Shelton writes of Melrose, "Every time you open your mouth, you sound a little less like a victim and a little more like a rooster crowing from the distance." It is "understandable if Koules and Barrie are irritated with Melrose all over again." However, Shelton adds it is "time for the Lightning owners to do some serious self-examination." Shelton: "Let's face it, they are off to an awful start. The team isn't winning, the fans aren't buzzing and, considering all of the changes, the locker room could use a revolving door." Barrie and Koules "look impulsive, reactionary, reckless." Lightning fans' problem is not Melrose, but rather the "bigger concern should be the growth of new owners to savvy owners" (ST. PETERSBURG TIMES, 12/11).
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