You know, there is a sentiment of negativity around John Tortorella through the NHL… Last season, there were rumors of his imminent demise in Hockeybay for employing the same type of public-attack antics against his players as some of the gruff and tumble coaches of yore have employed.

Fast forward to IceFest yesterday and John unloaded on outgoing team CEO Tom Wilson. Only available in the St. Pete Times print edition, Tortorella blamed Wilson for putting a number of hurdles in the teams way. Torts didn’t unload on Bill Davidson but didn’t think highly of Palace Sports and Entertainment as owners. To use an adage (and this is not Tortorella’s words — I am saying this as a paraphrase), the Lightning were the red-headed step children of the Michigan entertainment empire.

You know, I haven’t read all the news concerning the Lightning sale (I had something else on my mind) but something’s tickled my curiosity the last few days… that being the Asheville Tourists. I can remember Ron Campbell talking about the Lightning franchise acquiring the minor league baseball team as an asset. That basically means the Tourists were/are owned by Palace Sports as well… But are they part of the sale of the Lightning to Absolute Hockey?

I’ve been struggling to figure out what is the name of the Typeface being employed by the Bolts in their new logo layout:

In all honesty, the closest typeface I can find to font being employed in the logo is the Star Jedi typeface — yeah, that’s the Star Wars font for all those who don’t want to click on the link. I’ve been searching a few font sites but I’m not even sure where to begin looking regarding this typeface. Some people complain how “Cartoony” the font is, some people complain how “comic book” the font is… Yet it looks like a variant of Ariel or some other standard typeface and not cartooni-ish or whimsical in the least bit (that’s coming from someone who has actually seen what font creators think “comic” or “cartoon” fonts look like).

Any leads to the appropriate typeface are appreciated.

I remarked yesterday during the buildup for the Lightning uniform unveiling that the Lightning web site did nothing to allude to the new uniform/logo unveiling. There was nothing to milk fans on (in comparison, the Washington Capitals pulled off the hype beautifully in June even if their new duds are disgusting to me). I’m assuming that’s a local mistake and not a league mistake — even though the league runs the web site now.

My gripe today is about further hype building and hype killing. $114 dollars worth of hype killing to be exact. Why is it the NFL, NBA and (arguably) MLB can offer affordable jerseys to their fans and the NHL overcharges to get their teams logos out to the masses? $114 dollars for the new Lightning dark (home) jersey? Do they believe in the product? Do they believe they will draw in new fans by offering the new product at a high price amount? Surely this is cheaper than the All-Star jerseys from Dallas last year, and this is cheaper than most CCM authentics that were on the market…

But it’s still grossly out of touch with consumers in general. Get the price down, get the product out where people can see it and you increase your brand recognition in traditional and non-traditional markets. Cater to the masses, not the die-hards…

Not exactly hockey news and a bit superficial but I can’t get past it….

Martin St. Louis and Kevin Connolly have got to be related somehow