Melrose Out: The Mullet Is Gone!

In an effort to divert my attention from the bloody debacle that is the Ottawa Senators, I have been taking great joy in watching the even bigger debacle in Tampa Bay. Today it provided us all with another chapter.

The man, the legend, the mullet, Barry Melrose has been fired as coach of the Lightning.

Excuse me while I have a heart attack and die from such a shocking turn of events.

Yes the Hollywood big shots who thought they could just wander in, ignore all the NHL's general conventions about how to build a team, throw money at mediocre free agents, trade away their No. 1 defenseman and hire a coach who hadn't been in the league in over 10 years, have once again fallen flat on their faces.

Much like the many severed limbs in the endless Saw movies they churn out, the Tampa ownership has once again rid itself of another unnecessary appendage.

Recently, defenseman Matt Carle, only just acquired in the summer in the free agent free-for-all triggered by the new ownership group, was traded to the Flyers for Steve Eminger and Steve Downie.

The Lightning are mired in 13th place in the Eastern Conference (statistically behind even the abomination that is the Senators) and are not the juggernaut Tampa's Tinseltown tyrants envisioned when they promised to aggressively remake the team and abandon all generally accepted hockey logic in the process.

Replacing Melrose is the convicted felon Rick Tocchet, making one wonder how long it will be until we see Tocchet on the phone to his bookie before the shootout getting instructions to bench Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis in order to cover the spread.

They say it isn't nice to derive pleasure from the misfortune of others, but when that misfortune is not only hilarious but so easily foreseen, schadenfreude is most definitely in order.

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