Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Muckler is shown the door - draft day talk
Muckler is shown the door- Patrick Kane is welcomed by Chicago and MCN sports lights up the draft proceedings in Columbus
There are those who claim Cassius Clay never really landed that ‘phantom’ shot to Sonny Liston’s melon during their rematch in 1964. “We never saw it,” claim many boxing fans. Well I never saw John Muckler being shown the door by Mr. Melnyk and the Ottawa Senators just a few short weeks ago. That came out of nowhere in my opinion, just like Clay’s (soon to be Muhammad Ali) shot all those years ago.
As mentioned in my last blog I was going to talk to team President Roy Mlakar about playoff injuries during the airing of Tony House’s Big Bad Sports Show on Rogers Cable 22 here in Ottawa. Given that the Muckler firing transpired a mere 72 hours prior to the show it was not that big a surprise when Mr. Mlakar chose not to make the live TV appearance. Unfortunate but not surprising. Senator radio colour voice Gord Wilson was on the show however and his words were most enlightening to those of us who do not follow the team day-to-day.
I admonish myself actually for not picking up on this sooner but here are the nuts and bolts of it; Bryan Murray was set to become a free agent on June 30th. Despite leading the Sens to the finals for the first time, posting one of the best records ever from Christmas on and looking to most as a sure lock to continue coaching the team, despite all of that Bryan Murray still had no contract offer on the table to coach or otherwise several days after the season had ended. Unacceptable. It appears at this time Mr. Melnyk interceded and although I am not privy as to how the conversation went I think it’s safe to assume that Mr. Muckler was less than thrilled about keeping Mr. Murray on board and in fact Mr. Murray was less than thrilled to be a part of any organization that included Mr. Muckler. Faced with that Mr. Melnyk made the only decision he could – and he let go Mr. Muckler. This was not an amicable pair of hockey personnel. Most unfortunate but that’s the way she goes. We can debate Mr. Muckler’s tenure as a GM and for the most part my own opinion is it was satisfactory. Not anywhere near exceptional but certainly satisfactory. According to Mr. Melnyk at the press conference one of the deciding ‘last straw’ events was the trade deadline when Mr. Muckler was unable to acquire Gary Roberts. As Gord Wilson correctly stated on the show a week ago Monday, (June 18th) there are only a couple of people who really know for sure what transpired in the Roberts negotiations and whether Jacques Martin would have actually moved Roberts to Ottawa. Maybe that will come out down the road. At this point what is obvious is Mr. Muckler did not want to part with much to make the Roberts deal happen and it appears as if that was a huge detriment to his continuing as GM through the final year of his contract.
So, JM is gone. The search for a coach continues and my pick is Randy Cunneyworth. We’ll see how that goes in the next few days. I believe all of the writers and media types have it bang on, John Paddock will get a long look, Cunneyworth obviously is on this short list and we’ll see if somebody emerges as a dark horse. Peter DeBoer from Kitchener of the OHL is an interesting name that has also been mentioned.
Columbus, Ohio hosts the world’s biggest hockey convention
I had the good fortune to attend the NHL draft this past weekend, (June 21, 22) in Columbus, Ohio, home of the Columbus Blue Jackets. I was there working for MCNsports.com Feel free to check their site out and if you have audio and a high speed enough operation for a computer you’ll be able to see some of the interviews I did for this site. They should be up in the next week or two, certainly I would think by early July. Ton of fun. Among them were Steve Yzerman, Randy Carlyle, Rick Nash, Peter Mahovlich and numerous others. Hanging with the various hockey personnel was the best part of the whole thing frankly. Columbus’s strength and conditioning Coach Barry Brennan, is an Ottawa guy originally so he acted as our tour guide – to make sure we hit the best bars. Great job there Barry!! One of Barry’s closest friends and mine is a scout for the Boston Bruins, Wayne Smith. Smitty introduced my self and Marc Brunet, president of MCN sports, to numerous hockey personnel and we had a fantastic time attending some of the other scheduled events in and around draft weekend. Our conversation with Guy Lapointe was a classic, I'll have stories on that in the next blog.
All the talk about the Americans going as high and as often as they did is somewhat comical. The lack of Russians being taken because of no transfer agreement plus the weaker than normal crop of Europeans meant more Americans were taken than normal but overall there still was 102 Canadians drafted out of the 211 picks so once again, almost 50% of all drafted have a passport from north of the 49th parallel. If you are able to see those interviews check out the one with Montreal’s pick in the second round out of Belleville, PK Subban. Is this kid ready to go or what? It was quite something. In fact while we were dining and having a few pops with Brian Kilrea and the 67’s staff including owner Jeff Hunt on Saturday night they spoke very highly of this young man brimming with confidence. We’ll see how it goes at camp for him but he is very, very confident of one day playing for Montreal – sooner rather than later it would appear.
Later on Saturday evening I had the good fortune to have a few pops with Cam Neely. Neely is beginning to explore some off ice work with his alma mater, the Bruins and as such he was with their crew for the draft and for the social night that followed Saturday evening. Let’s just say this- Ulf Samuelsson will not be getting any dinner invitations anytime soon from Mr. Neely. That was a total treat talking hockey with him.
Next blog we’ll talk a bit about the upcoming Team Canada- Russia eight game exhibition junior series that is being held to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the Summit Series. I had a discussion with Brent Sutter at the airport leaving Columbus and we’ll have his thoughts for you here.
Trivia time. Last blog I talked about the first American to have his name engraved on the Cup as a player. NHL.com claims this to be a player named Johnny Sherf with Detroit in 1937. Only one problem with that, Clarence ‘Taffy’ Abel did it with the Rangers in 1928. To my knowledge he is the first in the NHL to have his name engraved as a player who was born in the States. Problem with birth locations is there is many errors with these the further back in hockey history you go. Abel I know for sure, that is documented in many sources but there could be another. As I said though, not to my knowledge. So Abel is number one in my book.
This blogs question pertains to the draft. Being selected twice is not an anomaly anymore in draft history. In fact it might surprise some of you just how far back you have to go to find this particular player who was the first in NHL history to be drafted twice. Any ideas? Let me know who you think it is. Keep your stick on the ice!!
Liam Maguire
There are those who claim Cassius Clay never really landed that ‘phantom’ shot to Sonny Liston’s melon during their rematch in 1964. “We never saw it,” claim many boxing fans. Well I never saw John Muckler being shown the door by Mr. Melnyk and the Ottawa Senators just a few short weeks ago. That came out of nowhere in my opinion, just like Clay’s (soon to be Muhammad Ali) shot all those years ago.
As mentioned in my last blog I was going to talk to team President Roy Mlakar about playoff injuries during the airing of Tony House’s Big Bad Sports Show on Rogers Cable 22 here in Ottawa. Given that the Muckler firing transpired a mere 72 hours prior to the show it was not that big a surprise when Mr. Mlakar chose not to make the live TV appearance. Unfortunate but not surprising. Senator radio colour voice Gord Wilson was on the show however and his words were most enlightening to those of us who do not follow the team day-to-day.
I admonish myself actually for not picking up on this sooner but here are the nuts and bolts of it; Bryan Murray was set to become a free agent on June 30th. Despite leading the Sens to the finals for the first time, posting one of the best records ever from Christmas on and looking to most as a sure lock to continue coaching the team, despite all of that Bryan Murray still had no contract offer on the table to coach or otherwise several days after the season had ended. Unacceptable. It appears at this time Mr. Melnyk interceded and although I am not privy as to how the conversation went I think it’s safe to assume that Mr. Muckler was less than thrilled about keeping Mr. Murray on board and in fact Mr. Murray was less than thrilled to be a part of any organization that included Mr. Muckler. Faced with that Mr. Melnyk made the only decision he could – and he let go Mr. Muckler. This was not an amicable pair of hockey personnel. Most unfortunate but that’s the way she goes. We can debate Mr. Muckler’s tenure as a GM and for the most part my own opinion is it was satisfactory. Not anywhere near exceptional but certainly satisfactory. According to Mr. Melnyk at the press conference one of the deciding ‘last straw’ events was the trade deadline when Mr. Muckler was unable to acquire Gary Roberts. As Gord Wilson correctly stated on the show a week ago Monday, (June 18th) there are only a couple of people who really know for sure what transpired in the Roberts negotiations and whether Jacques Martin would have actually moved Roberts to Ottawa. Maybe that will come out down the road. At this point what is obvious is Mr. Muckler did not want to part with much to make the Roberts deal happen and it appears as if that was a huge detriment to his continuing as GM through the final year of his contract.
So, JM is gone. The search for a coach continues and my pick is Randy Cunneyworth. We’ll see how that goes in the next few days. I believe all of the writers and media types have it bang on, John Paddock will get a long look, Cunneyworth obviously is on this short list and we’ll see if somebody emerges as a dark horse. Peter DeBoer from Kitchener of the OHL is an interesting name that has also been mentioned.
Columbus, Ohio hosts the world’s biggest hockey convention
I had the good fortune to attend the NHL draft this past weekend, (June 21, 22) in Columbus, Ohio, home of the Columbus Blue Jackets. I was there working for MCNsports.com Feel free to check their site out and if you have audio and a high speed enough operation for a computer you’ll be able to see some of the interviews I did for this site. They should be up in the next week or two, certainly I would think by early July. Ton of fun. Among them were Steve Yzerman, Randy Carlyle, Rick Nash, Peter Mahovlich and numerous others. Hanging with the various hockey personnel was the best part of the whole thing frankly. Columbus’s strength and conditioning Coach Barry Brennan, is an Ottawa guy originally so he acted as our tour guide – to make sure we hit the best bars. Great job there Barry!! One of Barry’s closest friends and mine is a scout for the Boston Bruins, Wayne Smith. Smitty introduced my self and Marc Brunet, president of MCN sports, to numerous hockey personnel and we had a fantastic time attending some of the other scheduled events in and around draft weekend. Our conversation with Guy Lapointe was a classic, I'll have stories on that in the next blog.
All the talk about the Americans going as high and as often as they did is somewhat comical. The lack of Russians being taken because of no transfer agreement plus the weaker than normal crop of Europeans meant more Americans were taken than normal but overall there still was 102 Canadians drafted out of the 211 picks so once again, almost 50% of all drafted have a passport from north of the 49th parallel. If you are able to see those interviews check out the one with Montreal’s pick in the second round out of Belleville, PK Subban. Is this kid ready to go or what? It was quite something. In fact while we were dining and having a few pops with Brian Kilrea and the 67’s staff including owner Jeff Hunt on Saturday night they spoke very highly of this young man brimming with confidence. We’ll see how it goes at camp for him but he is very, very confident of one day playing for Montreal – sooner rather than later it would appear.
Later on Saturday evening I had the good fortune to have a few pops with Cam Neely. Neely is beginning to explore some off ice work with his alma mater, the Bruins and as such he was with their crew for the draft and for the social night that followed Saturday evening. Let’s just say this- Ulf Samuelsson will not be getting any dinner invitations anytime soon from Mr. Neely. That was a total treat talking hockey with him.
Next blog we’ll talk a bit about the upcoming Team Canada- Russia eight game exhibition junior series that is being held to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the Summit Series. I had a discussion with Brent Sutter at the airport leaving Columbus and we’ll have his thoughts for you here.
Trivia time. Last blog I talked about the first American to have his name engraved on the Cup as a player. NHL.com claims this to be a player named Johnny Sherf with Detroit in 1937. Only one problem with that, Clarence ‘Taffy’ Abel did it with the Rangers in 1928. To my knowledge he is the first in the NHL to have his name engraved as a player who was born in the States. Problem with birth locations is there is many errors with these the further back in hockey history you go. Abel I know for sure, that is documented in many sources but there could be another. As I said though, not to my knowledge. So Abel is number one in my book.
This blogs question pertains to the draft. Being selected twice is not an anomaly anymore in draft history. In fact it might surprise some of you just how far back you have to go to find this particular player who was the first in NHL history to be drafted twice. Any ideas? Let me know who you think it is. Keep your stick on the ice!!
Liam Maguire
# posted by Liam Maguire @ 11:21 AM 
