The Lightning are set for their third Eastern Conference finals in four years as they take on the CapitalsGETTY IMAGES
The Lightning were "hemorrhaging money and losing fans" when Owner Jeff Vinik took over the franchise from Len Barrie and Oren Koules in '10, but the "turnaround has since been both remarkable and swift," according to Alex Prewitt of SI.com. Season-ticket sales "skyrocketed" and sellouts "became standard." Blue bolt flags "fly on seemingly every sun-splashed porch, the NHL All-Star Game came to town last January, and the players just reached their third conference finals in four years." Vinik, asked if he was looking at other teams before purchasing the Lightning, said, "I looked at Dallas, Phoenix, Florida, Atlanta before they moved to Winnipeg, Nashville, New Jersey, the Islanders, Columbus, Carolina ... just evaluating them all. One of the big factors was, where do you want to live? And Florida is a great place to live." He added, "Beside the great demographics of Tampa ... I just thought the whole community had so much potential that wasn’t realized." Vinik said when he took over, the team's brand "was really hurting in the Tampa Bay Area. The team had several years in a row of not making the playoffs. The building really wasn’t kept up well enough. And the organization wasn’t run particularly well at the time, and losing tens of millions of dollars." He added, "The team was in really tough shape and if I weren’t so fortunate to bring in Tod Leiweke as CEO and Steve (Yzerman) as GM, I don’t know if the team would’ve made it in Tampa, frankly." Vinik said Yzerman has "put together a great organization on the hockey side," and the "last thing I want to do is interfere." Vinik: "They do their job pretty well" (SI.com, 5/8).
