April 26, 2006

QUINN WIELDED TOO MUCH POWER TO STAY WITH THE LEAFS

      Several years the ago the shortsighted executives of the Toronto Maple Leaf hockey club committed a cardinal sin—they awarded Pat Quinn the dual role of General Manager-Coach.   This decision set in motion a string of events that would handcuff the operation and sabotage any effort for any future executive to create a proper working order.  As long as Quinn remained an employee of the Maple Leaf organization he would wield more influence and more power than a coach should, and it would effectively stifle any attempt at creative control by anyone other than himself.  In the end, for the betterment of the Maple Leaf franchise, Quinn had to go.

       When Pat Burns was fired late in the 1996 season the Leafs admitted that the success the franchise experienced in the early nineties was over and the team needed a new direction.  Nick Beverley was promoted to head coach for the remainder of the season.  After the season’s conclusion, and after it became blatantly apparent that the position was beyond Beverley’s abilities, the club hired Mike Murphy.  Two more mediocre seasons followed during which GM Cliff Fletcher was let go and team captain Doug Gilmour was traded.  A new system and a new direction were needed.  President Ken Dryden had assumed the GM mantle after Fletcher was let go and had hired Mike Smith as his assistant.  Before entering the 1998 season the Leafs had grown weary of missing the playoffs, as they had done the past two seasons under Murphy, and decided that an experienced coach was needed.  Pat Quinn was brought into the fold.

       Initially, this move worked wonders.  Quinn brought a new system of puck movement that heightened the entertainment and strengthened the club.  The team made the playoffs and looked to have a bright future.  However, behind the scenes, the stubborn, strong-willed, hard-nosed Quinn did not get along with the equally stubborn Smith.  The two constantly clashed and needed the diplomatic Dryden to ease the tension on a constant basis. Following the season both Quinn and Smith insisted a change was needed and so Smith moved on.  For his part Dryden, after two seasons as hierarchal GM (Smith was the defacto GM) recognized that with Smith gone it was imperative that a new GM was brought in to solidify the position, and allow him to return to his more comfortable presidential setting.  Unfortunately, the Leaf board wanted a continuation.  They didn’t want to change anything after the successful season, agreed with Quinn’s assessment, and suggested that if Dryden didn’t want the GM position that Quinn be given more responsibility—after all Quinn has many years of experience as an NHL GM.  Quinn had reservations.  He didn’t know whether he could find the time or whether he wanted to have the responsibility of the hockey club foistered onto his shoulders, but in the end decided it would be better to be the GM than risk having someone else (someone who he again could not work with) brought in.  This decision would prove to be the fulcrum for all future Leaf problems and issues.

       Quinn had proven through the years to be a solid NHL coach.  He had also proven to be nothing more than an adequate GM.  The Leafs should have realized this and insisted that Quinn remain solely as coach while bringing in an experienced GM that could work with Quinn (if one existed).  After one season Quinn had not yet burrowed his way into the Leaf board, and into its consciousness, enough to warrant having complete control over the hockey product.  But the Leafs--whether it was through fear that they would lose Quinn should another GM-Coach experiment fail, or whether they insisted on saving the money needed to hire a proper GM, or whether they thought that Dryden could maintain control over the organization--did not have enough foresight to keep a proper hierarchy in place.  Quinn was now the man in charge and nobody would attempt to take it away for fear of enduring his wrath.  His future success (the team made the playoffs each year) served to elevate the arrogance in the man, as well as increase his power over the organization. 

       In the four years that Quinn was in control the Leafs made the playoffs but failed to advance past the second round.  Quinn favoured veterans over youngsters, and often traded youth and draft picks for veterans.  By the time the organization realized that Quinn the GM was a failure, Quinn the political animal had established himself as irreplaceable.  He was into the Leaf organization so deep that when ownership restructured following the 2003 season and the new leaders insisted that one man couldn’t control both GM and coach positions Quinn managed to weasel his way into the process.  There would be three men in charge of finding a new GM—Dryden, MLSE President Richard Peddie, and Quinn.  The stunning decision to have Quinn hire his immediate boss left everyone in the sports community, both inside and outside of Toronto, scratching their heads.  Quinn was notorious for his inability to work with anyone, a character flaw that had only worsened as he aged, and now he was being given the opportunity to not only influence but to also ultimately decide on the next general manager.  The man was embedded so deep into the rock of MLSE that a crane and a bulldozer couldn’t have removed him at the time. 

       John Ferguson was viewed as a compromise choice.  Quinn wanted someone who had worked for him already—someone like Steve Tambellini.  Peddie and Dryden were smart enough to realize that the hiring of Tambellini would be akin to making no choice at all since Quinn would continue to run the hockey organization.  Quinn did not want the others to bring in an experienced man such as Neil Smith figuring, and rightfully so, that he would simply butt heads with the new man.  Ferguson, young and inexperienced, satisfied Quinn since he figured he’d be able to run roughshod over the young man, and it satisfied the other two men on the hiring board because Ferguson had no previous relationship with Quinn and came from a good hockey family.  Ferguson had to expect the run-ins and the differences of opinions that followed with Quinn, but the new GM was in a powerless position—he couldn’t fire the coach, since the coach had hired him.  So continued the ass-backwards operation of a major sports franchise.

       Ferguson had to wait three years before he could finally exert enough influence on the MLSE board and remove Quinn from the operation.  He needed the Canadian Olympic team to fail in its pursuit of gold (he couldn’t fire the coach that had taken the country to consecutive gold medals) and needed the Leafs to fail this year and miss the playoffs.  The failure of both teams gave Ferguson enough ammunition to remove Quinn.  He showed the board that the club had digressed over the previous years, and needed an injection of youth not only on the ice but off it as well.  After three years of dealing with the board the young GM had become a solid negotiator and knew how to get the board to agree with him.  Quinn tried to lobby for his job, but he was out of bullets.  The crane and the bulldozer successfully extricated him from the organization.

       Ferguson had finally shed his biggest albatross, but it had also opened him up to future criticism.  No longer would Ferguson be able to point to the coach as the reason the hockey team failed.  He would, at last, be able to hire his choice for coach, and would finally be able to gain control over the organization.  But if the club has a slow start next season and doesn’t look like it has improved Ferguson could quickly be replaced by a more experienced head-man.  The young GM does not have the successful resume of his predecessor behind him and as such will be given far less rope with which to hang himself. 

       If that occurs then Leaf fans have to hope that the organization has learned its lesson and will not make the same mistake.  Heaven help this club if when Ferguson is fired, that the board insists on appointing the coach as interim GM.  If that happens then we could see another cycle of improper management and failed hockey teams.   

      Good thing for MLSE that Leaf fans have proven that they will support any type of mismanagement, or any type of team, good or bad.