Ownership and Management

[donlever]

1 - we all understand your feelings here but you don't really think the AIG is selling right?

2 - Gagliardi and Beedie were interested and then some.

Have you ever looked into how all that went down RG?

If not take a peak, wonderful tale that fills the annals of Canuckdom just so perfectly.

[Meds]

B.C. has billionaires, but apparently, none of them are hockey fans.

True, and if Donny was any sort of solid cat, he would sell his private gulf island and buy the team.

[donlever]

Yeah, EP40 fucks everything up eh.

[Chef Boi RD]

The Whitecaps are having a season Canuck fans have dreamed of having with the Canucks, that’s one helluva squad they’ve assembled, the GM is great as well as the coach. Their nose for recognizing the right kind of players is insane and it’s really challenging finding good soccer players because they are spread out around the world. But the Whitecaps are in a precarious position as they have made it clear that BC Place ain’t working and would like to move back to the PNE grounds in a soccer only stadium but our government morons have their fingers to far up their asses to see something through. They should get out of he amusement park bursinees and privatize the PNE grounds, sell it. The racetrack is dead, stick a fork it it, their ability to attract quality breeds is Mickey Mouse. It’s a great location for a soccer only building. Parcel it off to a private ownership group before the Whitecap owners throw their hands up. This is a very well run organization, reward them, before we lose them.

[donlever]

Don't disagree Dude.

I also thought the rail yard by the Sea Bus terminal would have worked as a destination point plus and been an amazing location for many reasons.

[Chef Boi RD]

Don't disagree Dude.

I also thought the rail yard by the Sea Bus terminal would have worked as a destination point plus and been an amazing location for many reasons.

I liked it too, but apparently there are challenges at the location.

They have to do something quick because the Whitecaps ownership are running on fumes operating out of BC Place.

[Ronning's Ghost]

1 - we all understand your feelings here but you don't really think the AIG is selling right?

The complaint is that they are treating the franchise as a cash cow. If that's true, then they should be willing to take any amount of cash that amounts to a better ROI.

It sounds like you are arguing that the Little Eagles are treating the team as a combination source of cash and vanity project, but they just aren't that vain about winning. This would consistent with the little I recall about the ownership fight, but it's not rational to have a business that neither maximizes ROI nor improves the prestige of your brand. Not that the Little Eagles have presented a compelling case that all their business moves are rational...

It would be like an auto company both losing money on their flagship performance model, and having that model perform poorly.

Oh, wait.

Well, how's Francesco's health ?

[donlever]

I'm not bothering to look it up but they bought the team in the low 100 millions (200/250/300).

Forbes in Dec 2024 put current value at 1.95 billion.

Roi looks pretty good to me.

...and will continue to grow as TV/streaming deals expand and expansion rears its head again.

They're like the Brown family from Cincinnati.

...and we keep getting richer but we can't get our picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone...

Bringing up Topper again, he for years has said AIG owning the team is a Real Estate play as opposed to a win a championship one.

Getting harder to disagree.

As well, I am not arguing anything RG......I'm just shooting the shit.

[2Fingers]

This is a very well run organization, reward them, before we lose them.

Whitecaps went through many years where ownership didn't invest anything into the team but now they have and you can see the difference in the team. Yes a new location is needed, leave BC Place to truck/car and garden shows.

[Chef Boi RD]

Caps ownership have come out recently saying they can’t keep going like this, staying at BC Place. I have zero confidence in our municipal losers to see this one through. My heart tells me the Caps will move on to another city.

[dangler]

Caps ownership have come out recently saying they can’t keep going like this, staying at BC Place. I have zero confidence in our municipal losers to see this one through. My heart tells me the Caps will move on to another city.

That will be their(mls) absolute worst case scenario. They don't want to miss out on any expansion revenue or give up on a viable market.
I think there will be lots of dancing before this is settled.
At the end of the day it will probably be a better deal at BC Place.

[Chef Boi RD]

Caps ownership have come out recently saying they can’t keep going like this, staying at BC Place. I have zero confidence in our municipal losers to see this one through. My heart tells me the Caps will move on to another city.

That will be their(mls) absolute worst case scenario. They don't want to miss out on any expansion revenue or give up on a viable market.
I think there will be lots of dancing before this is settled.
At the end of the day it will probably be a better deal at BC Place.

Crown will have to make concessions of some kind for the Caps to stay at BC Place, it’s not a financially viable building (structure) for the Caps to play with the current deal they have there. They need to share in building revenues to help cover costs. If they don’t make some kind of deal soon the Caps are gone or sold to another local with deeper pockets to build a a soccer only stadium. I don’t think the current ownership group has deep enough pockets to build a stadium. I think they (caps owners) were hoping to go partners with Crown on a new stadium at PNE lands (horse track or the old empire stadium location). Mayor Jack ass Ken Simms was involved with the Caps in trying to help facilitate a move to the PNE lands. That didn’t last long. I believe the situation is dire. Expansion money is not a year by year financial injection. They are thinking the long term outlook here.

[dangler]

Crown will have to make concessions of some kind for the Caps to stay at BC Place

IIRC the deal at BC Place expires at the end of this season. No time to build a new one even if the stars magically aligned tomorrow.
There's no other venue options out there, are there?

[Chef Boi RD]

Crown will have to make concessions of some kind for the Caps to stay at BC Place

IIRC the deal at BC Place expires at the end of this season. No time to build a new one even if the stars magically aligned tomorrow.
There's no other venue options out there, are there?

They could sign a short term deal with similar terms, gut it out until they sort out another facility, a new one. Obviously there isn’t an existing building to go to, not sure where you got that impression. I think this about the long term, which is why I suggest expansion money isn’t going to convince them to stay. The league can’t keep expanding to make up for the year by year financial struggle.

[Todd Bersnoozi]

I find it quite laughable that some fans constantly want a rebuild; we know the history of this ownership group and it's no going to happen. PA pretty much said as much on After Hours.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSHRUfHqB-Q

I still remember the Nucks had a golden chance to tank for Bedard in the 2023 draft. Coach Boudreau was doing us a solid by getting us close to the basement of the standings (think we were 5th to the bottom @ one point), yet ownership still fired him and brought in Coach Tocc. Of course, the team responded and started playing way better hockey. We got a bunch of meaningless wins and rocketed up the standings, yet we still missed the playoffs and ended up with a mid-round pick. At the time, it wasn't even like Tocc was an in demand coach. He was just farting around on TNT television.

All any knowledgeable hockey fan has to is sit back and look at all the recent signings, drafting of this mgmt team and the incoming future cap space to realize their blueprint/vision on what they are trying to do. With the exception of Huggy43, they have all their core players locked up. All those guys got some form of limited no-trade clause. They drafted a bunch of prospects who do seem to have quite a bit promise (ie: Lekkermaki, Weelander, D-Petey, Cootes, Medvedev, etc). It's pretty clear they hope to supplement our current NHL core by working in some of those young players. If these young guys can become impact players sooner rather than later, all the sudden this team has a TON of depth. Add in the fact that most of them will be on ELCs or bridge contracts, it'll give the team A LOT of cap flexibility.

This year was always going to be a bubble year for the Nucks, no money to do anything of significance. They just taking what they have and hope for the best. The really question is what this mgmt team will do next season when they have like $17M to spend. I expect that they'll make a major play to finally get that legit 2C. Add in the fact that in 2 years, the Nucks will have $51M to spend. Of course, they'll have to use a big chunk of it to try to re-sign Huggy43, but it should still leave a lot of change on the table to add in another piece or 2 of significance.

https://puckpedia.com/team/vancouver-canucks

This team won't be built like the Oil who tanked it and got a bunch high draft picks/elite talent. The Nucks will try to contend by building a team with a bunch of depth in every position, kinda like Florida Panthers and Vegas Knights. With the majority of their core players locked up, some young players on their way and money to spend, this mgmt team hopes to become a contender through this route. Whether this will work or not, it is debatable, but their gameplan is pretty obvious.

Just some other thoughts on this mgmt team.

I think the pro scouting has been very good. I mean, they found P.Suter, Joshua, Sherwood44, Fartbort and even Lankinen in the garbage pile and got them on very team friendly contracts. Yah, there was some misses along the way too like Mikheyev, Heinen, Desharnais, but can't blame them for trying. I would have liked to have seen them try to sign a couple projects this past off season, but all they did was PO Joseph and some minor leaguers like Labate/MacEchren. PO Joseph has been ok, but don't see much upside in him.

Their amateur scouting has actually been better than I gave them credit for when they came in. I thought our amateur scouting would take a hit for sure when we lost the Draft Guru, Mr. JB. This mgmt team brought in Todd Harvey and he seems to have an eye for talent. The picked Lekkermaki, Weelander, D-Petey, Medvedev & Cootes is looking like a potential steal right now. There are a few other guys who might have a chance too (ie: R.Pattersson/Alrikkson, etc). Still too early to say how good any of them will become, but a bunch of them do look like they have a lot of potential/promise. They did all this with a bunch of mid-round picks, no high lottery picks given to them, which is pretty impressive.

It's pretty clear they intended to try to snag a playoff spot this season. To achieve this goal, I thought they should have signed J.Roslovic for sure. I mean he was farting around there for the longest time, begging for anyone to throw him a bone. Add in the fact that anyone in their right mind knew Chytil was not going to last. Instead, they were forced to try a hail mary on L.Reichel. Sure, it seems they wanted him for awhile now, but the guy hasn't even played centre @ the pro lvl. To hope that this project can come in and play the 2C is just too much to ask of the kid. They should have just offered Roslovic like a 1 yr $2M deal and tell him he's going to get a lot chances to display himself to earn a bigger long term deal, kinda like Lankinen last yr. U need depth to compete, especially in an important position like centre ice. This may end up costing us a wildcard playoff spot.

Goaltending is another important position and it should be of no surprise that Demmer35 is out AGAIN. His track record is now looking like he'll come back for a dozen games, injured for a few month, come back for a dozen games, injured for a few months, rinse & repeat. Not sure u can rely on him anymore. They gave us all this jabber that they were changing Demmer's training regime, easing his workload and a full healthy off season was going to change his durability. I was hoping that they knew something that we did not, but there has been NO DIFFERENCE.

I was pissed when we lost King Arthurs. Here is a guy whom we have groomed all these years. He's young, cheap, displayed TONS of potential and was showing that he was on the cusp of being rdy for full-time NHL duty, yet we shipped him out for pennies on the dollar. Losing Silovs will hurt our playoff chances this season and probably hurt our goaltending position for years to come.

Overall, I think I would give this mgmt team a C+. I do kinda like some of the things they are doing (locking up some of the core players, drafting), but failing to do anything to get some depth @ centre and losing Silovs for a bag of pucks does hurt their letter grade. Despite bungling this season, I do see their vision/blueprint on what they are trying to do. I think I'm willing to give them a chance to see what they do with the extra cap space ($17M + $50M) in the next couple years and maybe finally turn the fortunes of this club around. That being said, if this truly is the new TD35 who is regularly on the shelf, EP40 is unable to find any form of his former superstar self and Huggy43 leaves for greener pastures, then their game plan may just get blown up right before their eyes.