Cold-Heart Snakes

John Tortorella

Not only does he spend his days and nights on actual ice, Tampa Bay Lightning hockey Coach Tortorella is known for his no-nonsense, tough demeanor. Dressing down his players for not working hard is de rigueur for him. You might confuse his intense work ethic with being just flat-out frosty. According to a Tampa Tribune report about an incident that happened when Torts was in college, this is the way he dressed down a pouting player who was told he wasn't starting that day: "Hey, just get your head out of your [rear end]," Tortorella reportedly told the griping goalie. "It's not about you. It's about team. Team! Your job is to be ready. Let's play.'' The player he unloaded on? His brother.

Vincent J. Naimoli

The former general partner of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Naimoli set the gold standard for having an icy heart. He yelled at fans like Tom Chuparkoff, who told the St. Petersburg Times that Naimoli screamed and cursed at him outside Tropicana Field after a game in 2005. He insulted season ticket holders. He argued with cops who pulled him over for traffic infractions. He kept the payroll so tight the team set records for futility in professional sports history. God, we miss him.

U.S. Immigration Agencies in Tampa Bay

It's been a solid year of icy treatment from the feds' immigration agencies, and it's only May! Immigration and Customs Enforcement (appropriately called ICE) kept a fully acquitted Sameeh Hammoudeh in jail long after a jury said he was not involved in terrorism. ICE would not release Hammoudeh, one of Sami Al-Arian's co-defendants, even though he had already agreed in court to be deported and simply wanted to go home and help his family pack for their (coerced) move to Palestine. Then ICE's cousin agency, Customs and Border Protection, detained Safana Jawad, a Muslim woman from Spain, when she landed at Tampa International in an attempt to visit her 16-year-old son here. The reason? They're not saying, except to tell Jawad they believe she knows someone who is on their bad-guy list. Who is it? They refused to tell her. Instead she got strip-searched, tossed in County and sent back home without seeing her son.

Bay Area High School Principals

"Don't do the crime if you can't do the time," seems to be the message from some local high school principals. The crimes? Leaving school early to participate in rallies for immigration reform, in the case of some Durant and Plant City high school students. At other schools, the transgression involved taking part in the time-honored tradition of Senior Skip Day. The punishments? Everything from suspensions to not being able to participate in graduation exercises. As Dean Wormer so eloquently put it: "The time has come for someone to put their foot down, and that foot is me."

Tony DiMatteo

The Republican Party's chairman in Pinellas County has an icy determination to win and won't be deterred from it. He's already pushed aside a long tradition in the party of not getting involved in GOP vs. GOP primary races, opting instead to pick his winners early and support them to the hilt. That's why Pinellas County's Republican leadership has endorsed Charlie Crist for governor against Tom Gallagher and written him a big fat check for his campaign. And it isn't only partisan races; DiMatteo has no problem making sure that judges (supposed to be chosen in nonpartisan elections) are good conservative Republicans as well. It's all part of his dream to put the final knife in the Democratic Party, who he calls whiners, "not winners."

Jennifer Porter

That straight dark hair. That chilled, vacant stare. There was Jennifer Porter, standing behind her attorney, saying nothing while he explained why she struck and killed two young children. She looked like she had ice water in her veins. She hit the two children as they crossed the street and then kept on driving, leaving it to her parents and attorney Barry Cohen to try to whip up some community sympathy for the schoolteacher. She got off light: two years of house arrest and three years' probation.

Baywalk

If you are white, affluent and older, the owners of the BayWalk entertainment complex in downtown St. Pete are plenty accommodating and warm. It's only if you're African American or young or want to exercise your constitutional right of protest that the center turns downright arctic. Baywalk pressured the city of St. Petersburg to get rid of anti-war protestors, leading to several weeks of escalating and fairly ridiculous crackdowns that culminated in traffic tickets for cars that honked while driving by. BayWalk also tried to buy the sidewalk from the city so it could eject the protestors.

Katherine Harris

The U.S. Senate candidate just gets in under the wire for this category. She was known for her coldness, treating staff so poorly that she regularly turned over both her campaign and U.S. House offices. Lately, however, she is thawing out, acting just plain nutty instead of frigid. Must be those new Christian spiritual advisers.

Downtown Tampa after dark

Yes, Mayor Pam Iorio's administration has tried to make downtown better at night with projects like the Lights on Tampa installations. The Tampa Theater is great. And the spate of condo construction may actually bring living, breathing humans back into the mix. But the fact is that only the brave and lost wander downtown after dark. Nothing is going on, few restaurants are open, no clubs to speak of. Very inhospitable. The only spot of real urban warmth is the divey glow of The Hub.

Anne Arsenault

The Planet's own mild-mannered copy editor would seem on the surface to be a bad candidate for this chilly list. Until she wrote "Get Out of My Way" in the March 29 issue, an ode to the automobile's dominance over cyclists. In the aftermath of her measured diatribe against our two-wheeled cousins ("...I find that bikers really annoy me"), we were avalanched with letters denouncing her, including a not-so-veiled threat from Lance Armstrong himself that included the phrase, "Following her logic: gun trumps car, get out of my way!" Now, that's cold.