Southeast Notes

Just some Southeast notes.

The Atlanta Thrashers made the playoffs for the first time in franchise history just two years ago. But since then, it's been anything but positive. Just ask the fans. In the Atlanta Journal Constitution, a poll was constructed on their website:

Ouch! Seems like all is not well in dizzy bird land.

Could Jay Feaster be out in Tampa? I am sure a lot of you have read the blog posting on St. Pete Times website for Olaf Kolzig, but what I find more shocking was the paragraph at the bottom:

WHERE'S FEASTER?: Absent from the team's official player announcements has been general manager Jay Feaster. With Brian Lawton, vice president of hockey operations, handling most contract negotiations and owners Oren Koules and Len Barrie completing a three-headed brain trust for personnel issues, Feaster's duties are diminished. An upcoming meeting with ownership could determine his duties with the team.

Sounds to me like the axe maybe falling for Jay Feaster. Barry Melrose, Coach/GM? Don't be surprised either to see Melrose play Kolzig for every one of their games against the Caps.

Ready Your Mullets

Welcome Southeast Division's newest coach, Barry Melrose. The Tampa Bay Lightning are ready to introduce the mullet himself as head coach. Last time Melrose was a bench boss was in '95 - '96. He became a full time analyst for ESPN in 1996.

To refresh your memory, here are some other things that happened in 1996:

• MLS played their first game ever (DC United lost 1-0 to San Jose).


• Chess computer "Deep Blue" defeats world chess champion Garry Kasparov for the first time.


• Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski was arrested in his Montana shack.


• The Colorado Avalanche won their first Stanley Cup since moving to Denver.


• U.S. Mafioso John Gotti is found guilty of murdering Paul Castellano.


• A tiny girl stole our hearts with a vault jump on a bum ankle winning the gold medal for the US Gymnastics team in Atlanta, Georgia.


• Rent opens on Broadway (years later my wife makes me watch the DVD, there is 3 hours of my life I can't have back).


• Boris Yeltsin was sworn in for his second term as Russian President.


• The scoreboard in Buffalo's HSBC arena falls to the ice just hours before a game, no one injured.


• Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be successfully cloned from an adult cell, is born at the Roslin Institute in Midlothian, Scotland.


• Nintendo 64 was released in the United States.


• Six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey is murdered in the basement of her parents' home in Boulder, Colorado.


• The first version of Java programming language is published.


• And the L.A. Kings fire head coach Barry Melrose.

Over a decade later, apparently Melrose has gained some magical new coaching skills sitting in a Connecticut studio. His job is to return the Lightning to greatness after the new ownership group has the pressure on for their new acquisition, claiming "failure is not an option."

Melrose joins 2 other new coaches in a Southeast Division that only sent one team to the playoffs last season. The dynamics of the division didn't take long to change, and it will be interesting to see if any of the changes help teams that need the help. One thing is for sure, the Capitals will have a tougher time repeating. There should be no reason that they shouldn't.