By Gary Shelton
SportsLine Regional Columnist

Other men have sat in the chair before. Others have used the same words, the same phrases. Others have made the same promises.

At least, grant Rick Dudley this much. He knows the words have all been used up before, that those who follow the Tampa Bay Lightning have heard all the phrases and new beginnings and happy endings. Over the course of its existence, the Lightning has never been very much to see, but it has been simply marvelous to hear. Bluster and blarney, plans and promises, verbs and vows. It has used fancy words, forceful words, adjectives of gold and glory, adverbs of thrills and action, anything to get the ticket buyers back to the window.

And so it is that Dudley sits in his office, lit by the afternoon sun that streams through the palm trees and into the room. He pauses a minute and tries to find a way to say the right thing, but the wrong guys have used all the phrases long before he got here.

So what's different this time? What makes Dudley a different general manager than Phil Esposito and Jacques Demers and all the rest?

"I know we have to prove it," he said. "I know what the fans don't know. I know about this ownership group. This franchise will win a lot of lot of games. This building will be a happening."

WHERE HAVE WE HEARD THIS before? Everywhere, it seems. From Art Williams, thunder on the mountain, promising playoffs from his pulpit. From Esposito, who entered talking about a five-year plan to the Stanley Cup and who had the team worse off than when he started six years later. From Demers, who came in rumbling that the phoniness was at an end and who followed up with two last-place finishes.

We have heard so much, by buffoons and cartoons, that we have grown deaf from the beating of empty promises. This time, however, there is a chance. And it sleeps somewhere in Dudley's desk.

This is the guy to blame. If this regime doesn't work, it is his fault. He is the one making the calls. For the Lightning, this is wonderful news, because in the past, fault always has been hard to pin down, and the suspects have ranged from faceless owners from Japan to blurry fax machines.

Now there is one guy. The guy with the wire-rim glasses, with his hair combed all the way over his head, until it spills onto his right ear, like Edward James Olmos as the math teacher. What was the name of the movie? Oh, yeah. Stand and Deliver. Sounds like an ultimatum from the fans, doesn't it?

There is no nameplate on his office door. Inside, there are packed bags on a cart. Dudley is moving his office, again. Not that it really matters. Give him a desk, a phone and some files, and a projector.

HE IS DRIVEN, OBSESSED, ADDICTED. He is confident, intense, self-assured. He is also brand new. He has been with the Lightning five weeks, but Dudley has shown two things. He can make tough decisions like firing Demers and head scout Don Murdoch. He can also make them on his feet -- trading the No. 1 draft pick, which allowed the team to pick up, among others, goaltender Dan Cloutier from the New York Rangers after Williams had spiked a trade for Roman Turek.

Gun to your head, Rick, whom would you rather have? Turek or Cloutier?

"Cloutier," he said. "No question. He's six years younger, and he can be as good or better. If it was an either-or, we'd take Cloutier."

Okay, blame Williams if you want, because if Turek was here, the Lightning could have a goaltender and the No. 1 pick, too. But it says much that Dudley found another way to fix the problem.

"I'm a believer that things happen for a reason," Dudley said. "Maybe we got lucky."

Dudley should know. He's on a first-name basis with luck. For instance, he admits his own NHL career was "a fluke." It was a matter of right place, right time and right cross.

He was 17, playing in an industrial hockey league in Brighton, Ontario. The season was all of 11 games. He hadn't played the year before. If you pushed him, Dudley would have told you he was going to be a pro football player in the CFL. Maybe a teacher, like his parents. A hockey player? Who is kidding whom? He played lacrosse. He boxed. He played QB. But he barely played hockey. In Canada, where baby booties have blades attached, this is unheard of. Reaching the NHL despite it is like winning Lotto without buying a ticket.

SO HE WAS PLAYING IN the industrial league, and a buddy named Al Gordaneer knew he could fight, so he kept asking Dudley to go to a tryout for a Junior B team. Dudley said no, he knew he wasn't good enough. Finally, he relented. "There were 150 players at the tryout, and every one of them was a better hockey player than me," Dudley said.

Teams, however, were scrambling to find tough guys. And when Dudley beat up on some kid named Bobby Thompson, he found himself the newest member of the Dixie Beehives. A few more bloody knuckles, and he was playing for St. Catherine's with a guy named Marcel Dionne. He got better. He got a tryout with the Minnesota North Stars. The unlikely beginning eventually led to six seasons in the NHL, two more with the WHA.

"I was driven," he said. "I was in better shape than anyone. I probably worked harder. I probably wanted it more. I was fast, but I had to learn everything else."

THEY STILL SAY THE SAME things about Dudley. He works harder than anyone. He wants it more. And he prides himself on being able to see things others cannot. Case in point: When he was with the Carolina Thunderbirds, he noticed a Korean woman who was the maitre d' at an Italian restaurant. He and Ja-hee wed 15 years ago, and it is a match made atop a Zamboni. There are times she will watch two games a day and match critiques with him.

Now, they are here, living in a hotel room. Dudley came at a price. It took Rob Zamuner, a second-round draft pick and a lot of cash, reportedly $1-million, to pry him away from Ottawa. A team could get a pretty good player for that price. Instead, the Lightning got Dudley, whom it expects to get a lot of pretty good players. Is Dudley worth it?

Tampa Bay's new GM predicts Steve Ludzik will be an outstanding coach.(AP)

"I hope so," he said. "I think I am. I think I will make this team better. I hope a lot better."

There are those in Ottawa who say Dudley didn't do a whole lot in his year there. Dudley shrugs at the suggestion. Not doing something is part of the deal, too, he said, resisting the temptation to put a brand on something just for the sake of doing it. "We didn't need a major overhaul," he said.

Then there is the Lightning, which does. When Dudley watched this team a year ago, he saw young talent but zero depth. He saw the minor-league team in Cleveland play, and he didn't see a lot of players who could fill in. That will change, he said.

Already, there have been changes. Viper-like changes. Dudley has brought in his ex-Detroit Vipers coach Steve Ludzik, who he says "will be a brilliant coach." He has brought in the ex-Vipers radio analyst. He has brought in ex-Vipers players. If this is going to be a minor league hockey team, it appears, at least it has the chance to be a good one.

Also, he has traded the No. 1 pick to help the depth. He looks at a board with the names of his team, and he likes what he sees.

"I fully intend for this to be the most improved team in the NHL," he said.

Certainly, it has the furthest to go. But improvement isn't the litmus test. That will come down the line, when Vince Lecavalier and Pavel Kubina are up for re-negotiation, when tempting free agents are a phone call away.

"Money will never be a problem," said Dudley, who expects a payroll of $24-million this year. "Bill Davidson isn't going to do anything foolish, but if, say, Lecavalier is a superstar, and the market value is x dollars, we'll do what we have to do. When it gets to the point where we can contend, it won't be a problem. We'll do what we have to do to win."

Did Esposito ever say that? Did Williams? Maybe. Words are easy; it's the games that have always been hard.

This time, maybe it is different.

This time, maybe this team isn't a dead man talking.