If he was smart he would. Pegula reads these boards, man.
Agree with your sentiment about Regier - today's presser helped solidify my perception that BTG cuffed Regier in at least some respects. I'd still rather see him go, but if he sticks around next year I'll genuinely be interested to see what he does under new ownership.
Echo. It could be interesting seeing what Regier can do without LQ and BTG in the mix. But if TP insists on getting rid of him, well that's just fine and dandy.
And as for using Chicago as an example about leaving room in the Cap for the future, well let's say the last 11 years would have been much easier to bear as a Bills fan knowing we at least won it all one time.
Finally got to listen/watch the entire drama on Sabres.com and thought:
- The defensive posture many noted Golisano taking was obviously aimed at his annoyance with the Buffalo media. Right off the bat, he took a jab at the editorial dept. (i.e. Gleason/Sullivan) writing in 2003 that Golisano should have stayed away from the team and not get involved. The "thick skin" comment was further evidence, as was his absence in the media since 2008.
- Golisano's self-aggrandizing came off like a complete fool, bragging about "being the only team in the Northeast to win the division twice during the 8 years of ownership", "being in Eastern Finals twice", winning 50 games twice. Everyone and their cousin could see that Golisano was hanging his hat on 2 great seasons out of the 7 he's owned the team for.
- Likewise, for Golisano to tout Quinn's "winning record" as worthy of respect, only to qualify that the team's been .590 under his control, was a joke. The other credits he tossed to Quinn's "innovation" were so silly - Quinn was responsible for the use of shovels cleaning the ice during TV timeouts, which "every team does now"; or that Quinn/DiPofi were the ones who came up with the Winter Classic idea, ignoring that the NHL did an outdoor game in Edmonton 5 years before. Boasting about having the best video scoreboard in the league was not only subjective but trivial.
- The feeble attempts to justify their cap decisions were pathetic and lame, from using the personnel losses Chicago endured after winning a Cup because of cap issues as an argument why his approach was wise, to the ridiculous mention that "we've always been within 10% of the cap limit" - ignoring the fact that such a distance was $5M on average.
- Some of Quinn's remarks really surprised me - starting with his "you don't hold some thing back from Tom and live to tell about it" comment and later saying that he wasn't even sure he "wanted to come back to Buffalo the second time", needing Golisano to persuade him.
- It was fun watching Quinn squirm on the question Hamilton asked on whether Quinn was leaving of his own choice or because Pegula told him to take a hike. Quinn's response that "it was mutual" and "a little of both" was delicious. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall or on the line when Pegula spoke to Quinn. It does make it interesting that the two will sit together at tomorrow's game in Pittsburgh.
- The suggestions in TBN and elsewhere of Craig Patrick as a potential GM replacement are fine with me but when Quinn mentioned that he spent 2 years with the Penguins organization between his two Buffalo tenures and that Quinn still has many contacts/connections in Pittsburgh, which would have overlapped with Patrick's time there, made me nervous. God forbid if anyone with a past alliance to Quinn comes in.
- Most obvious "duh, ya think?" moment was when Quinn said that "leaving this time is better than the 1st time".
- All of the "golden parachute" talk about Regier's extension wasn't as clearly dismissed as some noted during the live PC thread. I know Golisano said Regier/Ruff never were told the team could be sold and Quinn said he shook hands on Regier's deal in August, but the timeline they explained with Pegula seemed to justify the parachute perception. Golisano said that Pegula approached him "about a year ago" (Quinn said it was March 2010) if the team was for sale; after "1-2 months", Golisano told Pegula "no". That would have been May. Golisano went on to say "several months later, we went back to Terry to see if he was still interested" - so, assuming "several" is usually interpreted as 3-4 months minimum, that would have been August-September 2010 when Golisano and Quinn told Pegula they would sell the team. Whether or not Regier had any inkling, who knows - but Quinn's offer of the extension seemed definitely to have come with the awareness that the team would be sold, so in effect, it was a "parachute" they gave to Regier for his obedience IMO.
What I want to know is why Golisano wouldn't comment on the amount of profits he made off this team on a yearly basis. Between the profit sharing, the peanuts he paid for the team, and switching jerseys every year... they made money and it showed in their smug looks yesterday. None of that was taken into account when fielding the roster which is the single most important part of a hockey team. The team has continued to sky rocket in value from day 1 yet none of that was apparently counted as "profits" when talking about the team making/losing money.
Golisano was quick to defend himself when asked about how the team could have dropped off since the presidents trophy in 06-07... he placed the blame on the gm, coach, and players. Yet he still continued to not only employ those guys he placed the blame on, but also offer them 2 more contracts after that. This pretty much confirms that Darcy and Lindy have been a puppet to Quinn and Dipofi for the last several years. No other coach and GM would deal with that crap. Which leads me to my next point...
I don't think Lindy knew about the situation. When offered an extension (whenever it was) it wouldn't surprise me if he was sick of what was going on. Did the Sabres get any kind of fine for that Ottawa game or was it just Lindy? It wouldn't surprise me one bit if they were behind the way Lindy has coached the past few years.
Nothing surprises me any more with these idiots.
The back patting they all gave each other yesterday was deathly sickening. I seriously wanted to vomit.
"Statistical results of Vanek and Roy are the same as Drury and Briere"
VOMIT.
Do they really have a video scouting staff or do they just make their draft boards full of the guys with the most point totals in North America?
He used averages during his entire presser to show how great of a job everyone has done...
Why couldn't he sack up and use averages as a factor in dollar value for his roster?
We all knew he was a businessman and now we understand how billionaire's who don't give a rats ass about sports actually work. We all knew that's how it was, just never had the confirmation from Golisano. Now we do. He apparently watched all but 6 games in the last 7 years and he was really okay with how things looked? That makes him sound even worse.
Last edited by S319R11S16: 02-04-2011 at 07:32 AM.
Let's face it, the team we watched the last few years is due to a convergence of many many issues.
1. Coaching
2. A GM that adjusts slower than a glacier.
3. A micro managing partner.
4. Changes in the way the game is officiated due to pressure from large market owners
5. An owner that is hostile to labor.
6. The CBA and cap, which killed the concept of hockey trades
7. A few bad contracts.
This team was at it's best when it came out of the lockout with young, cheap talent designed for the 'new rules'. At the same time the game started to tighten up again, those same players started to hit free agency and demand market contracts that were in conflict with the way the organization wanted to sign talent. After letting key players go, management failed to adjust their style and enter the UFA market, instead choosing to wait it out with young talent, and plug holes with retreads and has-beens. They locked themselves into some bad 'value' contracts and are stuck with them as they won't buy-out players, nor is there an environment where they can trade away a contract without taking one on. In addition, they refused to give up young assets, prospects or picks to bolster the roster which is one of the only ways to get a trade done these days and improve your team.
Some blunt - yet fair - appraisals in Gleason's column today:
Quote:
By the time he finished his opening statement Thursday and fawned over everything his ownership group accomplished during its tenure with the Sabres, you weren't sure if Tom Golisano's next venture would be ending world hunger or solving the crisis in Egypt.
Golisano's dizzying 14-minute spin-o-rama covered just about everything, from him pulling the franchise out of bankruptcy to variable ticket pricing to on-ice success to its new-and-improved scoreboard to the shovels they use for scraping the ice during TV timeouts.
Quote:
Golisano's directive to managing partner Larry Quinn, minority owner Dan DiPofi and General Manager Darcy Regier was to make sure the team broke even on the balance sheet. If they won, even better, but the soon-to-be former owner was mostly concerned with the bottom line, not the scoring line.
Just as you suspected, it was about the dough first, the victories second.
Quote:
Golisano was gushing about the Sabres' winning percentage Thursday, but do people really view Regier as the guy who can build a championship team? You don't measure NHL success in the regular season, as Golisano did. Listening to him talk about their record during his ownership was affirmation that he didn't have a clue about winning.
Great quote coming from Quinn in another TBN article by Vogl today, summing up Quinn's end of involvement on the waterfront project:
Quote:
"I have an old expression, that you can nail wings on a pig but you can't make it fly, and I'm tired of trying to make a pig fly. This political community here is so screwed up that I'm tired of it. It's just a joke."
Reading that view from Quinn, doesn't it also pretty much sum up the general consensus everyone felt about the management of the Sabres in his tenure?
A rebuttal to Quinn's attitude came from a Buffalo preservationist who dealt with him:
Quote:
"Larry Quinn is the Hosni Mubarak of planning in Buffalo, going back to his early days in the Griffin administration and extending through the Bass Pro fiasco that set back waterfront development by at least six years," said preservationist Tim Tielman, executive director of Campaign for Greater Buffalo. "Through it all, he has demonstrated an autocratic attitude that repeatedly went against the desires of the public and sound public policy."
Let's face it, the team we watched the last few years is due to a convergence of many many issues.
1. Coaching
2. A GM that adjusts slower than a glacier.
3. A micro managing partner.
4. Changes in the way the game is officiated due to pressure from large market owners
5. An owner that is hostile to labor.
6. The CBA and cap, which killed the concept of hockey trades
7. A few bad contracts.
This team was at it's best when it came out of the lockout with young, cheap talent designed for the 'new rules'. At the same time the game started to tighten up again, those same players started to hit free agency and demand market contracts that were in conflict with the way the organization wanted to sign talent. After letting key players go, management failed to adjust their style and enter the UFA market, instead choosing to wait it out with young talent, and plug holes with retreads and has-beens. They locked themselves into some bad 'value' contracts and are stuck with them as they won't buy-out players [unless they go to arbitration], nor is there an environment where they can trade away a contract without taking one on. In addition, they refused to give up young assets, prospects or picks to bolster the roster which is one of the only ways to get a trade done these days and improve your team.
Pretty good summary, with one small addition.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sabretip
Some blunt - yet fair - appraisals in Gleason's column today:
It really does sound like Quinn is sick of Buffalo, and this is his "Goodbye Cruel World" flameout. Goodbye and good riddance.
In typical hypocritical fashion, Quinn also says in that article that people put greater scrutiny on the decisions the Sabres made than on "more important" matters - all the while ignoring that his repeated meddling on the hockey personnel side when he was brought in to oversee business operations amounted to the same mistakes.
Two mentions of Egypt in articles pertaining to running a hockey organization and land development. Are we yet seeing why Buffalo is laughed at and looked at as small-time in every sense of the phrase? I'm surprised Gleason didn't invoke the Holocaust. He's probably familiar with Godwin's Law.
Quote:
"Larry Quinn is the Hosni Mubarak of planning in Buffalo, going back to his early days in the Griffin administration and extending through the Bass Pro fiasco that set back waterfront development by at least six years," said preservationist Tim Tielman, executive director of Campaign for Greater Buffalo. "Through it all, he has demonstrated an autocratic attitude that repeatedly went against the desires of the public and sound public policy."
Given the current state of the region, as well as WNY public's "desires" regarding who to elect and what public policies to establish, I think that's exactly what any smart businessperson would be doing.
What I want to know is why Golisano wouldn't comment on the amount of profits he made off this team on a yearly basis. Between the profit sharing, the peanuts he paid for the team, and switching jerseys every year... they made money and it showed in their smug looks yesterday. None of that was taken into account when fielding the roster which is the single most important part of a hockey team. The team has continued to sky rocket in value from day 1 yet none of that was apparently counted as "profits" when talking about the team making/losing money.
Golisano was quick to defend himself when asked about how the team could have dropped off since the presidents trophy in 06-07... he placed the blame on the gm, coach, and players. Yet he still continued to not only employ those guys he placed the blame on, but also offer them 2 more contracts after that. This pretty much confirms that Darcy and Lindy have been a puppet to Quinn and Dipofi for the last several years. No other coach and GM would deal with that crap. Which leads me to my next point...
I don't think Lindy knew about the situation. When offered an extension (whenever it was) it wouldn't surprise me if he was sick of what was going on. Did the Sabres get any kind of fine for that Ottawa game or was it just Lindy? It wouldn't surprise me one bit if they were behind the way Lindy has coached the past few years.
Nothing surprises me any more with these idiots.
The back patting they all gave each other yesterday was deathly sickening. I seriously wanted to vomit.
"Statistical results of Vanek and Roy are the same as Drury and Briere"
VOMIT.
Do they really have a video scouting staff or do they just make their draft boards full of the guys with the most point totals in North America?
He used averages during his entire presser to show how great of a job everyone has done...
Why couldn't he sack up and use averages as a factor in dollar value for his roster?
We all knew he was a businessman and now we understand how billionaire's who don't give a rats ass about sports actually work. We all knew that's how it was, just never had the confirmation from Golisano. Now we do. He apparently watched all but 6 games in the last 7 years and he was really okay with how things looked? That makes him sound even worse.
He is a strong businessman. He saved the franchise. He did not want to go into the red, but spent a ton of money. They made some bad decisions and are saddled with some bad contracts. Many teams are. Each team is at some point. He has no obligation to share the amount of his proifts. What do you expect him to say. "I was in it for the dough. I sucked as an owner. The management team I put together sucked".
^^
And, to MillerFan1's post, 1st large paragraph, appreciation of an asset value is not counted as "profit" - either annual operating profit, NPAT, or EBITDA, etc. It's the equivalent of appreciation in share price (market cap) of a publicly traded company. It's not done in any other business. I don't think it should be counted in hockey, because that profit's not taken until the asset is divested.
But the 2 paragraphs after that are insightful speculations.
That wasn't fair. It was childish rant. Bucky's like the immature little kid who hates his parents because they won't buy him a new toy while failing to acknowledge they've provided him with food, clothing, and shelter.
That wasn't fair. It was childish rant. Bucky's like the immature little kid who hates his parents because they won't buy him a new toy while failing to acknowledge they've provided him with food, clothing, and shelter.
In this analogy, he doesn't get anything unless he rants.
Two mentions of Egypt in articles pertaining to running a hockey organization and land development. Are we yet seeing why Buffalo is laughed at and looked at as small-time in every sense of the phrase? I'm surprised Gleason didn't invoke the Holocaust. He's probably familiar with Godwin's Law.
Let's not blow it out of proportion. Gleason made one generalization in characterizing Golisano's glowing attitude about the Sabres' situation by mentioning the crisis in Egypt. News reporters make references/comparisons all the time to current news events to get a point across.
As for Vogl's article about Quinn's future, the comparison of Quinn to Hosni Mubarek was a direct quote from a Buffalo preservationist familiar with Quinn, not something Vogl generated.
