On Again, Off Again...Team Sale is in Trouble

Remember that story of the guy who worked for a Paris bank that lost $7 billion in unauthorized fraudulent deals a couple of weeks ago? Well it is indeed a small world. That bank was the one Koules was getting about $110 million in financing from to buy the team. Key word...WAS. The bank, Societe Generale, has shut down it sports lending division. That means, although not completely dead, the deal to buy the team isn't happening anytime soon. Koules will now have to seek financing from other sources, and if you have ever applied for a mortgage, multiply the time and complexity of that by a trillion, and that's what and how long it will take to get new funding.

"Based on our understandings here in Tampa, despite the hardships in the financial markets today, the process is still moving forward, just not at the pace that any of us desired,'' Lightning President Ron Campbell said in a statement. "Nevertheless, we will continue to work together to get something consummated in as safe and as timely a manner as possible.''

This is mess that was not needed 2 weeks before the trade deadline, and with Boyle's pending free agency sitting out there.

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