Barrie Talks Frankly About Bolts

Throughout the season, Lightning co-owner Len Barrie has stood in the background. He has remained silent when rumors have churned through the mill. And when he's been in town, he hasn't been visible.

He expects that to change.

Barrie took a few days from attending to his Bear Mountain Resort in Victoria, British Columbia, to watch the team through its two-game swing through the New York area over the weekend and took a few minutes to address some issues regarding the team and answer some questions.

How have things been this season personally?

Things are going well at the resort so it's been a busy time, but I plan on being around more in Tampa next year to help out.

What about these rumors suggesting that you and fellow co-owner Oren Koules are not on speaking terms these days?

I just talked to him Saturday. He was at his son's hockey game, and we pretty much talk every day so I don't know where that comes from. Rumors are rumors. And if we don't talk every day, it's usually odd.

How disappointed are you with the way the hockey season has gone?

We are very disappointed because we had high expectations. You don't get into this business not to have high expectations. It was a tough start with the coaching change. To be within eight points of the playoffs at one point when both goalies and top two defensemen go down, and you are not a deep organization, you are going to struggle. But I really like the pieces we have now compared to last year at this time. Now we just have to go build around it and go back to try to win the division next year.

How important does that make this offseason for you guys?

I think this is going to be a totally different summer. Before where we weren't really sure if the sale was going to close or what was going to happen, then we had July 1. So this year will be a lot more organized. We will probably go after one or two or at the most three pieces depending on what happens with the draft and where we sit. So I think we will be a lot more organized. There are some really good pieces to build around. Stammer Steven Stamkos is going to be there, Vinny is going to come back 100 percent healthy with five months to train and we'll go from there.

How excited are you about the summer and what you might be able to do?

I'm really excited. I talked to Columbus coach Ken Hitchcock the other day and he said, "You guys have a lot of pieces to build around." So if we get Smitty goaltender Mike Smith back healthy, Andrej Meszaros and Paul Ranger will have both shoulders healthy. We'll go out and get a defenseman and look for the young guys to push the guys up top.

How about the rumors regarding the financial situation of the franchise, that things are not on solid ground and you have been having problems meeting payroll at times this year?

All year you hear this stuff because we are not billionaires when we bought the team. But we made every payroll, every bonus this year, and the players will be the first ones to say they didn't get paid. It's just the old thing that people want to see us fail instead of succeed. We've always said we'd like to get equity partners and put all the rumors to rest. But we are still here and moving forward.

How are things with Bear Mountain?

We just sold 56 condos the past three weeks. The market has picked up. In October it all blew up for everybody but things have come back nicely for us. We're in a different part of the world, so as long as we stop watching the American news we'll be fine. We're situated well and we'll see what happens with some other things we are working on and go from there.