Hurricanes ink Michael Leighton to 2 year deal — ch.com
Thank the gods for that, too. This will give us some stability in goal, which will help immensely. I just hope that they don’t suddenly decide to start fighting again.
In other news: Salaries are higher now than they were pre-Ragnarok. WTF? Frakkin’ hell people, why did we have a lockout in the first freakin’ place?
Hairy Gelrose to replace Fidel Tortorella as Lightning Coach - Toronto Star by way of TSN
The Leafs fans on TSN, of course, are hoping that Tortorella comes to coach the Leafs–boy, won’t they be in for a shock when they realize after the first season and a half that Fidel is a coach whose half-life is measured in Planck Time. I mean, really. His harsh uber-disciplinarian style has a distressing tendency to grate on the players, and after a while all but the most fanatical will simply stop listening to him go on and on and on about La Revolucion Gloriosa because they just flat aren’t interested anymore.
Mind you though, they were all over having Chairman Mo as their coach three seasons ago, and look at how that turned out–there’s just no telling those Leafs fans anything, I guess.
Anyway, about MulletMan–sure, the guy took the Kings to the Finals in 93 (where they choked a series lead to the Habs, who SUCK…just sayin’), but aside from that he has done bobkes except for sit and rap about hockey for Bristol. Sure, The President of the Show may be a buddy of his, but c’mon; I am really not seeing that this is an upgrade coaching-wise for the Lightning.
Future Owner Oren Koules (who shall henceforth known in this space as FOOK) is reportedly barracking for this sea change in order to sell hockey in a market where home games already sell out much of the time–which just tells me that dudeman has his head up his ass even more than I originally thought, given that Tampa is currently 8th in the League in attendance.
Sorry Lightning fans–expect more rough seas ahead, but be glad…at least you’re not playing at the Trop anymore.
Great Leader to take more of a hand in day-to-day running of Hurricanes — N&O
I see nothing good coming of this, to be honest. What’s he going to do, get a team of “advisors” together to tell him how he should run the team?
Actually, that’s a little unfair–unlike Richard Gordon, the Great Leader does know something about hockey, so I don’t think that he’ll be getting tennis players and futbol stars around him to help him run the team into the ground. But this whole thing just has a strong (indeed, distressing) air of Bad Craziness. Not a move (sorry to disappoint you, the 13th of April Movement), but definitely problems.
Every time that Pete Karmanos has meddled (and to me, it’s meddling when an owner gets involved in day-to-day ops like this) in the affairs of the Hurricanes, it has either not gone well OR a bad and distracting situation has just been dragged out even longer than it needed to be (see “Holdout: Primeau, Keith”) because of the man’s tendency to let his temper get the better of him and his equally upsetting (to me) tendency to run his mouth without regard for the wisdom (or lack thereof) of such things. I forsee little if any good coming of this, and that does not make me a happy camper at all. If he were more an easygoing big-picture Ted Leonsis kinda guy, then I wouldn’t have a problem. But PK? Umm…no.
Colour me the Loyal Opposition…of course, when have I ever pretended to be anything but?
In other news:
Jim Rutherford was named to the NHL’s new goaltender equipment working group, along with fellow GMs Doug Risebrough, Garth Snow, and (of ALL people) Brett Hull.
I can’t be the only one that sees the double-shot of irony in this. I mean, really.
(title courtesy Shadow Warrior)
Ladies and gents, I think we’ve found the worst NHL owner since Richard Gordon–and his name is Charles Wang.
For those who have been under a rock for the last week, here’s a quick recap:
Islanders owner Charles Wang fired GM Neil Smith. Two hours later, he announced the hiring of Islanders backup goaltender Garth Snow as the new GM. Three hours after THAT, Pat LaFontaine resigned his post as advisor to Charles Wang–and, according to Bristolero EJ Hradek, did it largely because Wang blew off his advice to 1) give Smith more time on the job before pulling the trigger, OR 2) wait a while (i.e. longer than two hours) before naming a new GM. Wang then went on WFAN’s “Mike and the Mad Dog” show in an attempt to defend the indefensible, and wound up admitting two things: He doesn’t know dick about hockey (which, I guess, at least makes him better than Richard Gordon), he seriously believes that he can run a pro sports franchise like it’s just another business, and that it is (in his opinion) a great idea to have manglement by committee–despite the fact that such a model has NEVER worked in the history of professional sports.
The only one untouched by this, so far, is Isles’ coach Ted Nolan–who is very wisely saying what amounts to “Don’t ask me man, I just work here”–but I suspect that right around the All-Star Break, Citoyen Wangspierre will send him to the guillotine, too.
So my question is this: What did IslanderNation do to deserve getting saddled with a terminally clue-free owner and a GM who’ll spend all his time scopin’ all the little puckbunnies at the NVMC?
Seriously, I’m askin’ here.
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