Bruce Dowbiggin
When Analytics Fail Is It Time To Call In Legends?
It seemed only a short while ago that the trend in NHL management was going to toward analytics and new-age concepts of building a Stanley Cup winner. The poster boy for this movement was Kyle Dubas, hired by the Maple Leafs at age 32 to be their general manager. The idea was to take a more empirical approach to winning, eschewing the old sweats of the past.
Dubas, who’d been a GM in the OHL with Sault Ste Marie, represented the ascent of using analytics to determine what makes a team click. It also was a concession to the complications of salary-cap management, the byzantine art of juggling egos and eight-year contracts. It was believed that individuals schooled on that side of the business would be best for the new challenges.
Dubas was not alone in promoting something other than the old “try harder” school of management. Every team made a concession small or large to the new orthodoxy. Needless to say the hockey establishment saw this as a threat to their hegemony in the sport. (Using the term analytics can get you tossed out of a few hockey bars.) Dubas’s firing does not mark the failure of analytics.
Even as they bend a knee to the digital ways of doing business, NHL owners still are fans of the game. Yes, they want the perks in winning. But they also love to hang around the legends of their franchise, guys they grew up idolizing. So when fans get restless, NHL owners often turn to the legendary players of the franchise to take the heat off them.
A classic example covered in our 2015 book Ice Storm was how the hapless Vancouver Canucks, winners of zero Stanley Cups since 1969, pivoted from progressive GM Mike Gillis, who’d taken the team to within a game of the Cup in 2011. When the club failed to advance past the first round in 2012/ 2013, however, owner Francesco Aquilini began taking heat in the market.
A tangled trade controversy with goalie Roberto Longo only exacerbated the tension. When forcing Gillis to hire firebrand coach John Tortorella failed to improve the club’s fortunes, Aquilini handed the GM post to franchise legend Trevor Linden, who had no managerial experience. Since sacking Gillis, the Canucks have failed to make the postseason seven times in nine seasons.
A similar situation has emerged in Calgary where the team canned GM Brad Treliving (who immediately replaced Dubas in Toronto) after missing the playoffs in 2022-23. When given an ultimatum between Treliving and hard-ass coach Darryl Sutter, principal owner Murray Edwards opted to keep Sutter, who had two years left on his contract. When that brainwave went over like a lead balloon in the fan base, the Flames pivoted to hiring Craig Conroy, fan favourite and (here’s a hint) a guy already under contract with the Flames.
The GM shuffle either indicated loyalty to a Flames employee or the fact that Calgary has become a toxic job site in the NHL due to the meddling of its principal owner who flips quarters like manhole covers. Sensing Conroy alone might not be able to placate the base, Flames legend Jarome Iginla was brought in as a special assistant to put a nice face on the floundering Flames.
The genial Iginla has no managerial experience, and new rookie coach Ryan Huska is not going to enjoy Iginla breathing over his shoulder— no matter how pleasant a guy the Hall of Fame is. But if this uncomfortable management structure buys peace for the owner (who principally lives in Switzerland these days) then it will be seen as a success in the owners’ box.
CALGARY, CANADA – MARCH 3: Jarome Iginla #12 of the Calgary Flames jumps over the boards to start his shift during their NHL game against the Vancouver Canucks at the Scotiabank Saddledome on March 3, 2013 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. (Photo by Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images)
Making the Calgary situation more perilous, the other owners are aging, no one locally is a natural candidate to spend the billion dollars it takes to run an NHL club, and the Flames new arena is still, at best, three or four years away. Good luck. So they’re hiring at discount prices.
Calgary is hardly alone. In Philadelphia, Flyers hero Daniel Briere has been handed the job of resurrecting the proud franchise. The Flyers have missed the playoffs the last three seasons, and so Briere has carte blanche (for now) to blow things up in Philly. He’s got two first-round picks at the moment and has done a three-team trade. So he’s been active. Adding ex-Flyer legend John LeClair is another attempt to placate fans.
Briere says, “We’re going to try to make things happen”. But the question is, how long will the faithful remember Briere the Hero when the current team is a mess on the ice? Former heroes don’t like their reputations tarnished by making the wrong moves.
Mike Grier is another former fan favourite, this time in San Jose, where he took over the GM job from longtime stalwart Doug Wilson. Grier hired his old college buddy David Quinn to coach the toothless Sharks, but you know his stale date is coming soon if San Jose doesn’t get moving fast. Ditto for former-stars-turned GMs Chris Drury (New York Rangers) and Rob Blake (L.A. Kings).
Joe Sakic is one legend-turned-general-manager who did succeed, taking over the Colorado Avalanche is 2014 and helping to guide them to a Stanley Cup in 2022. Sakic was aided by taking over the Avs at their lowest point, which earned them superstars like Nathan McKinnon and Cale Makar in the draft. He won the GM of the year in 2022 and has now moved out of the GM chair.
Red Wings legend and current GM Steve Yzerman is unique, having built the Tampa Bay Lightning into Stanley Cup winners before returning to Detroit to resuscitate the pitiful Red Wings, who’ve gone from model NHL franchise between 1990-2017 to seven straight playoff misses since. It would take something monumental for the Detroit fanbase to turn on Yzerman, but there is an expectation that he needs success— soon.
So analytics may not have conquered the NHL as yet, but summoning team legends still has its fans in owners desperate to have someone else to blame.
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Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his new book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx
The Toronto Maple Leafs made the “what colour is that green light?” decision to fire their head coach Sheldon Keefe last week. The removal of Keefe after five years followed a dispiriting first-round playoff series loss to a very ordinary Boston Bruins team. Coaching may or may not have been the root cause of that loss. (Keefe himself admitted “teams are waiting for the Leafs to beat themselves”.)
The real reason for the firing is 1967, and we don’t think we need add more than that.
In essence, the management of MLSE— the owner of the Maple Leafs and a lot of other sports stuff in Toronto— needed to throw a body to the baying hounds of disappointment. Also known as Leafs Nation. Newly minted CEO Keith Pelley, fresh from the PGA Tour/ LIV psychodrama, was certainly not going to pay the price.
Nor was GM Brad Treliving who has only been on the job for two seasons. The key decisions on Toronto’s lopsided salary cap were decided long before Treliving occupied his desk. That left two people in vulnerable positions. 1) Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan, who has been drawing an MLSE cheque for a decade. 2) Keefe.
When was the last time you saw a coach fire a team president? Precisely. Keefe joins the list of (briefly) unemployed coaches who circulate in the NHL like McKinsey consultants. Shanahan gets a lukewarm mulligan from Pelley. But after the failure of the Kyle Dubas experiment— “who needs experience?”— and now just a single playoff series win in a decade Shanny’s best-before date has arrived.
Toronto Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan attends a news conference in Toronto on April 14, 2014. Toronto Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan said Peter Horachek will remain the team’s interim head coach until the end of the season. Shanahan met the media Friday for the first time since coach Randy Carlyle was fired on Tuesday. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
Depending on who he and Treliving enlist to coach— remember, Mike Babcock was too tough and Keefe was probably too player friendly— it had better produce instant results. Because Shanny, the pride of Mimico, is out of chances. The coach choice will also be affected by whichever player or players that management decides are superfluous to ending the Leafs’ ridiculous run of misery.
The Leafs brass’ press conference last Thursday did little to shed light on what happens after Keefe’s expulsion. Just a lot of MBA determinism on a bed of baffle gab. A crabby Steve Simmons question/rant briefly threatened the harmony of the moment, but order was restored. And the media bitching switched from the press box to social media and podcasts.
Speaking of the fourth estate, the other unmentioned aspect of this story— indeed every story in the NHL these days— is just how it was revealed to the public. When people sipped their morning Tim’s or Starbucks the (almost) coincident bulletins came down the social media pike about Keefe’s dismissal.
Predictably, Chris Johnston of Sportsnet and Daren Dreger of TSN announced the breaking news within heart beats of each other. While there had been speculation on Keefe’s fate for days, the announcement coming from the networks duo confirmed the story in the minds of the industry. That allowed everyone else drawing a cheque as a hockey journalist to pile in and swarm the dead body.
In today’s sports journalism, where social media has replaced newspapers, scoops are governed by a protocol. There are the heralds— in the NHL it’s currently Johnston and Dreger— and then there are the disseminators. The days of a rabble of reporters all scrambling to get a story bigger than who-will-play-in-tonight’s-game are gone. Today, it’s a very narrow funnel for scoops.
It’s the same in the NFL where Ian Rappaport (NFL Network) and Adam Schefter (ESPN) monopolize the tasty scoops on behalf of their employers, who also happen to be NFL rights holders. In the NBA, Brian Windhorst (ESPN) has the inside rail when it comes to the LeBron James/ Steph Curry scoops. In MLB… it’s probably Ken Rosenthal (The Athletic) but no one cares about baseball anymore, do they?
The leagues like it this way, doling out stories to guys they can trust. None of this is criticism of Johnston or Dreger, who have deftly maneuvered themselves into the coveted “from their lips to your ears” spots. From our own experience we can remember the exhilaration of having the best source or sources on the really big stories. Like Johnston/ Dreger, we worked hard for a long time to develop those sources and only very reluctantly let anyone else horn in on our stories.
It was also our observation that this order of things journalistic suited a lot of reporters who either couldn’t get good sources or didn’t want the stress of being first on stuff. It was enough that, like the Keefe story, they’d get the goods eventually and most fans would not care who was first. So long as you had a take. So be it.
Some resentful types took potshots at our work if it upset their pals in the dressing room or the management suite. On the Stephen Ames/ Tiger Woods story in 2001, we had the late Pat Marsden tell us on air that we’d done a great job on Ames’ criticisms of Tiger. Only to hear him lambaste us— again on FAN 590— only minutes later as we listened driving home from the studio. But we digress.
Many reporters are complacent in playing the game, so long as their bosses didn’t enquire why they are getting scooped all the time by the same few rivals. With the death of daily newspapers that doesn’t happen much any longer. (Many editors today may only see stories when publication brings a libel notice.) For them a salty take is good enough.
The scoop business is also affected by the multiple roles now demanded of sports media types. In addition to their “day job” on a beat they also have to supply digital content and talk-back hits to the Mother Ship. Most also are feeding a weekly podcast, dictating time on air rather than time working the phone. There are only so many hours in a day to chase a story.
Better to play the Breaking News waiting game.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the publisher of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Now for pre-order, new from the team of Evan & Bruce Dowbiggin . Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL & Changed Hockey. From Espo to Boston in 1967 to Gretz in L.A. in 1988 to Patrick Roy leaving Montreal in 1995, the stories behind the story. Launching in paperback and Kindle on #Amazon this week. Destined to be a hockey best seller. https://www.amazon.ca/Deal-Trades-Stunned-Changed-Hockey-ebook/dp/B0D236NB35/
Have you ever been to a concert where a hot new product like Tesla is mentioned and many in the crowd applaud in approval? Have you been at a dinner party when you say you went to a new Thai restaurant, and everyone at the table explodes in rhapsodic glee? Have you ever been to see a comic and he mentions he has the latest iPhone with the nifty camera and people actually cheer?
You see those people cheering a piece of tech or a style of cuisine? Those are the people who believed Justin Trudeau when he told them to sink everything into real estate when interest rates were near zero. They. Will. Believe. Anything. So long as they think it makes them cool kids. Trudeau could say he can control the weather by stopping cows from farting, and they’ll be wearing a bovine flatulence T-shirts pronto.
Now, we can hear you laughing in derision at our skepticism about the real estate-economy that has taken over the nation— the new economy that Justin fed, watered and then bragged about. (To the exclusion of the other cornerstones of our once-dynamic nation state.) The one that will be going to Market one of these days for a meeting with an air compressor.
Again, you laugh. Despite the housing shortage Justin says we can easily accommodate two million new souls a year, no problem. He says Trump was a vile racist for wanting to exclude unhinged radicals from zombie countries back in 2017. The freshly-arrived from Trump’s “shithole countries” with “shithole value systems” and “shithole economies’ will prop up the value of Canada’s two-million dollar cash-cow bungalow in West Van or Etobicoke. And the Happy People believe.
Why? Because Justin and his cabinet are in Control, and they’ll just rein in these types when they get here and start asking that Jews be exterminated or white people surrender the merit system to DEI droogs. That little dustup at the universities where nervous trust-fund virgins claim to be onside with systemic rape? Justin can stop them anytime. Everything is cool. After all, Canada is the model for a postmodern state.
And that stuff about how the Canadian real estate market being 80 percent propped up by drug money, kleptocracy profits and Blackrock? Pshaw. That is just the Far Right Diagolons trying to panic you into hiding your money from the government which just wants to send it to the “shithole” countries in a kickback loop. If nothing else, the banks will save you— if there’s any shareholder value left after this deranged DEI diversion.
Can’t happen here? We know people who were around the EU in 2008 when the U.S. mortgage debacle cratered economies around the world. For years they’d been served by Poles in the service industry, Spaniards in the restaurant kitchens and Bulgarians doing the physical labour. Life was good. Everyone drove a Beemer and owned a condo overlooking the sea.
Then, one day, they noticed that all the airport parking lots were overflowing with Beemers that went unclaimed. No one had paid rent in months. The banks noticed that all these lovely fellow citizens of the EU had drained their savings, reached their cash credit limit on the Mastercard and skedaddled with the dough. Funny, they all must have gone on holidays to once, no?
No. They were gone. Bye bye. Adios. And the credit bubbles in Ireland, Norway, Iceland, France and other EU worthies popped like the champagne they’d been sipping for years on easy credit and idiotic notions of productivity. Nations like Iceland went bankrupt overnight. Counties in England threw their keys on the table. People’s life savings evaporated.
But Justin says that won’t happen here on his co-watch with Jagmeet the Bespoke. Sure, no one under the age of 40 can afford those two-million dollar cash-cow bungalows in West Van or Etobicoke. But those old Boomer geezers will die soon, and after we tax the daylights out of the estate, the kiddos will inherit the house. Probably after we turn it into a four-plex or fine them for having empty bedrooms because they couldn’t afford kids.
One of the ferocious beauties of market economies is their way of periodically turning on themselves when too many people are getting rich too easily. The Canadian RE economy of Justin Trudeau is one of them. It’s about a decade old without any sign of dropping. Life is good. Everyone drives a Tesla and rents a condo overlooking the sea.
Little wonder. Everything he and his faculty lounge of dimwits like Chrystia Freeland, Melanie Joly and Steven Guilbeault have done this decade has been to prop up the value of real estate owned by their real pals in Asia, Europe, the assorted kleptocracies in Africa or the sub-continent. It was like an ad for Chlorox the way these “investors” blithely laundered their dirty money in Canadian condos and low-rises. When news leaked out that mobsters were using casinos in B.C. (where Justin’s maternal side came from) as a laundering station it was covered up very quickly.
But the clock ticks. Even Justin’s former finance minister Bill Morneau is warning that the bubble is going to pop if Justin keeps printing more money to keep the real estate values so unsupportably high. The entire middle class of Canada, which has ridden the real estate train, will see their life savings evaporate like Jody Wilson Raybould’s political career.
No matter. Justin’s been living in government housing since 2015 (some of it with his Mommy). What does a trust-fund nit know about making rent cheques or a mortgage payment? Without Sophie spending like a dervish, he never needs to look at an America Express card again. He’s got 17 more months to build up credits with his future benefactors, and he’s not applying the handbrake now.
Okay, you can applaud now.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Now for pre-order, new from the team of Evan & Bruce Dowbiggin . Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL & Changed Hockey. From Espo to Boston in 1967 to Gretz in L.A. in 1988 to Patrick Roy leaving Montreal in 1995, the stories behind the story. Launching in paperback and Kindle on #Amazon this week. Destined to be a hockey best seller. https://www.amazon.ca/Deal-Trades-Stunned-Changed-Hockey-ebook/dp/B0D236NB35/
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