Former Ottawa Senators executive sues Melnyk, team for $1.55M

hawthy

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Mar 31, 2010
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I know its easy to think things are greener with OSEG but there is a difference between a Cfl cap of what 5 million and the Nhl of 75 million if the were to buy the team I could would not expected much to change in term of spending until the new arena is built.

I am aware of the scale of the leagues. You're not speaking to what I'm saying, at all.
 

Dr.Sens(e)

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Of note, this happens in business all the time. An owner / CEO / executive, gets really mad about someone they see as incompetent and tries to fire them for cause, which is stupid, as it's almost impossible to find cause, even with some criminal acts in place. You let the person go without cause with severance and move along.

Dumb move by Sens not going this route, but it's hardly a unique situation. In the end, some executives / owners can't stand the idea of giving severance to an incompetent employee, so they fire with cause as a matter of principle, but it's never pragmatic.
 

Micklebot

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Apr 27, 2010
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Of note, this happens in business all the time. An owner / CEO / executive, gets really mad about someone they see as incompetent and tries to fire them for cause, which is stupid, as it's almost impossible to find cause, even with some criminal acts in place. You let the person go without cause with severance and move along.

Dumb move by Sens not going this route, but it's hardly a unique situation. In the end, some executives / owners can't stand the idea of giving severance to an incompetent employee, so they fire with cause as a matter of principle, but it's never pragmatic.

What's the downside to taking it to court and expecting to lose? I assume that the sens have lawyers on retainer or on full time staff, so I wonder what's the increased cost to go this route. I literally have no idea, so it very well could be a lot.
 

Mingus Dew

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Oct 7, 2013
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What's the downside to taking it to court and expecting to lose? I assume that the sens have lawyers on retainer or on full time staff, so I wonder what's the increased cost to go this route. I literally have no idea, so it very well could be a lot.

Well if you intentionally take a frivolous lawsuit to court then there are legal consequences I think (both for the lawyer and the claimant).

Moreover, corporations usually hire outside counsel for any kind of significant litigation (not sure if this would apply for an organization the size of the Sens, but they likely don't have specialized labour and employment attorneys on payroll). Litigation, especially long-term (read: most) litigation is really, really expensive.
 

Dr.Sens(e)

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What's the downside to taking it to court and expecting to lose? I assume that the sens have lawyers on retainer or on full time staff, so I wonder what's the increased cost to go this route. I literally have no idea, so it very well could be a lot.

The downside is threefold.

1/ The Sens can likely settle for a bit less than what you'll have to pay based on a judge deciding. The claim is ridiculous and they'll never have to pay close to that, but they'll definitely have to pay $200k at least. The reason being is the plaintiff will have considerable legal bills to see this through, so getting 75% of the cash now, might actually get you the same money in the end when your legal bill comes in. Perhaps the gap will be too wide, but the lawyers don't likely expect to get anything close to what they asked for.

2/ Besides paying less, the legal bills will be in the $10's of thousands for the Sens, so regardless, paying now makes sense. The Sens likely have pretty much 0 chance of really winning this outright, especially if the performance reviews are not awful and the employee wasn't on extended notice of performing better

3/ It's a distraction. Does Melynk really want to go to court, prepare with lawyers for hours and hours and then get cross examined by a clever lawyer hell bent on making him look like a mofo? Life's too short.
 

jason2020

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Sep 24, 2014
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The downside is threefold.

1/ The Sens can likely settle for a bit less than what you'll have to pay based on a judge deciding. The claim is ridiculous and they'll never have to pay close to that, but they'll definitely have to pay $200k at least. The reason being is the plaintiff will have considerable legal bills to see this through, so getting 75% of the cash now, might actually get you the same money in the end when your legal bill comes in. Perhaps the gap will be too wide, but the lawyers don't likely expect to get anything close to what they asked for.

2/ Besides paying less, the legal bills will be in the $10's of thousands for the Sens, so regardless, paying now makes sense. The Sens likely have pretty much 0 chance of really winning this outright, especially if the performance reviews are not awful and the employee wasn't on extended notice of performing better

3/ It's a distraction. Does Melynk really want to go to court, prepare with lawyers for hours and hours and then get cross examined by a clever lawyer hell bent on making him look like a mofo? Life's too short.

Judges don't like it when people waste there time so if they try and make Melynk look bad with little to back up there claim it will get tossed out very fast.
 

Dr.Sens(e)

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Judges don't like it when people waste there time so if they try and make Melynk look bad with little to back up there claim it will get tossed out very fast.

Trust me - employment law is such, that when you fire someone with "cause" you better have a smoking gun to demonstrate a blatant history of poor performance and your companies documentation of such performance. And even then, you'll probably lose.

Based on my high level understanding of the case, the Sens didn't give this employee a substandard employment review along the way, which even one, wouldn't be enough for 'cause'. I think the judge will be quite irritated the Sens didn't offer the guy some basic severance - even just a few months. By firing for cause, they'll actually have probably irritated the judge more than anything.

That said, the claim for $1.5M will probably irritate the judge too. Based on his salary, seniority and tenure, he's probably due $200k or so. Sens should just offer that, and if he won't take close to it, see him in court.
 

Wondercarrot

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Jul 2, 2002
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These cases happen all the time as for business people speaking out they have to walk a very fine line if you start speaking out and turns out to have little proof to back it up you can end up hurting your own company.

Of course, plus Ottawa is small city so while you won't see any quotes in the paper - you would be hard pressed to find any businessmen, employees or players who have ANYTHING good to say about him.
IMO he is one intensely disliked man.
Same pattern as in his previous life at biovail. Feel free to look through court documents filed during his dispute with the board - abusive, erratic, lying, etc etc etc. It's all there to see.
Just more of the same with the Sens.
 

jason2020

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Sep 24, 2014
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Of course, plus Ottawa is small city so while you won't see any quotes in the paper - you would be hard pressed to find any businessmen, employees or players who have ANYTHING good to say about him.
IMO he is one intensely disliked man.
Same pattern as in his previous life at biovail. Feel free to look through court documents filed during his dispute with the board - abusive, erratic, lying, etc etc etc. It's all there to see.
Just more of the same with the Sens.

A city with over a million is really not seen as small with that's aid look at MLSE or any owner its much the same.
 

gbl1p

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Ottawa does have a fair size corp base just look at the Ottawa high tech sector its on the rebound big time Shopify as one example just announced they will triple work force to well over 2500 many other company have announced big hiring sprees as well and with Ford coming that is a huge company.

Right, remind me check in on Sens attendance and when all those 2500 people from Shopify pick up season tickets, or when Ford comes in at some undetermined point in the future. What does future tech growth have to do with woeful attendance for a decade which is the case in point.

Winning will be the best way to activate the Ottawa market. It's not coming from a rebuilding tech industry. I really hope you're not comparing Ottawa to Montreal & Toronto.
 

Wondercarrot

By The Power of Canadian Tire Centre
Jul 2, 2002
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A city with over a million is really not seen as small with that's aid look at MLSE or any owner its much the same.

Ottawa is a small very interconnected corporate city, and no it's absolutely not the same.
On a business level sure, everyone is looking for good deals etc. Fans are also notoriously fickle depending on the state of the team. That however, has little to do with the level of personal animosity he has sparked from former players, staff, potential business partners, former business partners, the city of Ottawa etc etc
 

jason2020

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Sep 24, 2014
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Ottawa is a small very interconnected corporate city, and no it's absolutely not the same.
On a business level sure, everyone is looking for good deals etc. Fans are also notoriously fickle depending on the state of the team. That however, has little to do with the level of personal animosity he has sparked from former players, staff, potential business partners, former business partners, the city of Ottawa etc etc

You can say that about most cities.
 

JD1

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Sep 12, 2005
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Ottawa is a small very interconnected corporate city, and no it's absolutely not the same.
On a business level sure, everyone is looking for good deals etc. Fans are also notoriously fickle depending on the state of the team. That however, has little to do with the level of personal animosity he has sparked from former players, staff, potential business partners, former business partners, the city of Ottawa etc etc

personal animosity from former players? really? who? show me a quote. All I ever hear said is players talking about being treated properly by the organization ....how well they are treated etc. So who are you talking about?

As for the city, the sens franchise has never had a warm relationship with the city or the province for that matter. That transcends who owns the team and who is running the city or the province. It's a clash of cultures IMO....sports team owners are billionaires....municipal politics is generally run by left wing wing nuts......and the personality types cannot be more opposite.

where's the animosity from future business partners? that's kind of a funny comment because when you have a high level of animosity between personalities it tends to not result in a future business relationship.

animosity from former business partners? are you talking Biovail? Valeant? Big business involves lots of money. Melnyk is a self made billionaire....and you simply do not become that without some level of bullying at the corporate table. Bill Gates is the richest man in the world and good on him for trying to set up foundations to benefit society and give all his money away. Nice guy. Super geek. Now, having said all that, Microsoft as a company is a predator. It is a big, nasty company. Google the term Microsoft predatory business practice and read all about it. I personally don't think that Melnyk is very different than most people that have accomplished what he has accomplished. The difference is that it is local so we hear about it. Google billionaires psychopath. Lots of interesting stuff to read.
 

16w

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Jun 23, 2003
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personal animosity from former players? really? who? show me a quote. All I ever hear said is players talking about being treated properly by the organization ....how well they are treated etc.


there was a Melnyk interview today where he told a story about having a talk with Mike Condon after his 14th consecutive start.

He said "you will crack because I've seen it far too often".

Condon explained why he wouldn't and then went on to play 27 consecutive games.


I don't know how Condon felt about that, and I don't know if Melnyk is the kind of guy who uses these 1 on 1's conversations as a motivation tool... but it seems to me like you want to build your goalie up rather than try to "be right" about someone failing just to validate your ego's inifinite wisdom.
 

Pierre from Orleans

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May 9, 2007
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there was a Melnyk interview today where he told a story about having a talk with Mike Condon after his 14th consecutive start.

He said "you will crack because I've seen it far too often".

Condon explained why he wouldn't and then went on to play 27 consecutive games.


I don't know how Condon felt about that, and I don't know if Melnyk is the kind of guy who uses these 1 on 1's conversations as a motivation tool... but it seems to me like you want to build your goalie up rather than try to "be right" about someone failing just to validate your ego's inifinite wisdom.

What was the context of the interview?

Regardless that's not a good thing to say to any of your employees
 

16w

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SAK11

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Oct 4, 2011
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there was a Melnyk interview today where he told a story about having a talk with Mike Condon after his 14th consecutive start.

He said "you will crack because I've seen it far too often".

Condon explained why he wouldn't and then went on to play 27 consecutive games.

I don't know how Condon felt about that, and I don't know if Melnyk is the kind of guy who uses these 1 on 1's conversations as a motivation tool... but it seems to me like you want to build your goalie up rather than try to "be right" about someone failing just to validate your ego's inifinite wisdom.

Melnyk talks too much and says some stupid things but this was actually a good interview from him. He's basically praising the team, complimenting the year they had and explains why he was willing to bet on them, thus adding at the deadline.
I'm sure he had plenty of nice things to say to Condon, he was just concerned about his workload, as were a lot of people here.
I'm sure the Anderson's and the MacArthur's appreciate an owner who cares about their well-being. Good on Melnyk.
 

Nac Mac Feegle

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Jun 10, 2011
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A city with over a million is really not seen as small with that's aid look at MLSE or any owner its much the same.

Dude, I know you love the Sens (as we all do here), but blind faith in the players/management/owner is a very dangerous thing.
 

BloodRedArmy

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Nov 29, 2013
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there was a Melnyk interview today where he told a story about having a talk with Mike Condon after his 14th consecutive start.

He said "you will crack because I've seen it far too often".

Condon explained why he wouldn't and then went on to play 27 consecutive games.

Wow. What a complete idiot. End of story.

Also, Alfie sure left in a huff... just sayin. There has certainly been animosity from lots of folks in and around the org.
 

JD1

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Sep 12, 2005
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Wow. What a complete idiot. End of story.

Also, Alfie sure left in a huff... just sayin. There has certainly been animosity from lots of folks in and around the org.

ya he did.

do you think that upon reflection he felt he contributed to his departure. the way some on this board believe he was mistreated he wouldn't be much of a man to be back now would he? I mean he sure doesn't need the money. I know if I felt that I was wronged by someone else's dishonesty I'd be done with them. so you know....maybe it didn't go down that way
 
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Pierre from Orleans

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May 9, 2007
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ya he did.

do you think that upon reflection he felt he contributed to his departure. the way some on this board believe he was mistreated he wouldn't be much of a man to be back now would he? I mean he sure doesn't need the money. I know if I felt that I was wronged by someone else's dishonesty I'd be done with them. so you know....maybe it didn't go down that way

There's always two sides to the story and usually the side that's more beloved will get the benefit of the doubt. Alfie was revered as a God.
 

JD1

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Sep 12, 2005
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I agree completely about benefit of the doubt and Alfie being revered as a god.

I read the article referenced. it was clearly about Melnyk taking an interest as a human being in the well being of his players. it showed a side of him as a caring person.

and the commentary here of being an idiot....the guy can't win. how about in this instance we extend Melnyk the benefit of the doubt
 

jason2020

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Sep 24, 2014
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Wow. What a complete idiot. End of story.

Also, Alfie sure left in a huff... just sayin. There has certainly been animosity from lots of folks in and around the org.

He did not leave in a huff that was made up by a blogger and got debunked very fast by many outlets.
 

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