I’ve just said it, that Formington was forced out of the league despite being a rather good player and the speculation about Philly trying to trade hart and teams not biting (there was an athletic quote I saw where Montreal said “they wouldn’t go there” or something along those lines). Other teams knew about their guys but calgary didn’t? You’re right, there is no smoking gun, and the only direct link to Calgary was 2 posters on Calgarypuck claiming they heard in advance from ppl around the organization (one of the posts was removed by mods and was made before the hart leave, the other stated they heard this beforehand after the fact that he was being charged was released) that the leave had to do with the investigation.
That’s enough to cast just a little doubt for me. In terms of imminent charges, perhaps they didn’t know. The potential of dube being charged though? I have a hard time believing that. But fine, if you think that’s just not enough, I don’t blame ya.
As much as sometimes maybe we should have known, we don't. We should have known Wideman might nuke a ref? We should have known that Peters made racist comments years ago and it would have been a problem exactly when he was a Flames coach and not when he was a Carolina coach? We should have known that Sutter would both win the Jack Adams and go crazy to be turfed soon after that to continue the curse? We should have known exactly what happened with Dube?
I don't get why we end up with some of the worst PR at the worst times. Fricken the whole Peters thing was basically a smoke screen for Babcock (as his protege) and we got the worst out of that situation than the Leafs did. Babcock even got a second chance before getting nuked again for looking at player pics on their phone without permission.
The Dube thing I'm not defending or commenting, but again we're unlucky enough to be the org with the most ire thrown at again. We basically had no choice but to ride the Dube situation out anyways because of combinations of action/inaction by the London Police/NHL etc. At least the Flames didn't try and weasel out of the situation by trading or actively moving the players/giving them chances when the contracts expired as other teams did, but that seemingly doesn't matter. So again, why is our org the one taking the most flack (even more so than the fact we don't seem to be the team with the ring leader) because of stupid extra wording on a tweet?
It's just blatantly frustrating to be the team most illuminated by the spotlight, especially when our guy wasn't the main guy getting the spotlight shone on the group in the first place, nor were they the main character in having the spotlight pointed in our way.
But it's not purely that we are in trouble that annoys me. It's that we tried to do right, but it seems like we get skewered anyways. Peters was the guy who was a dick to Aliu when a coach for the Hawks affiliate. We gave Aliu a chance under Feaster but get nuked on the whole ordeal because in the end we had the Peters hot potato when the whole thing blew up.
We tried to do right for the Dube thing and we were one of the only teams with one of those players on contract. We didn't try to move the player (ie: Philly) or obscure facts (ie: Foote, McLeod) so that the could continue NHL careers, but we get nuked moreso than the team who had the ring leader because we used a tweet that allowed sympathy to Dube when many felt he should have gotten nothing or should have been tar and feathered and brutalized in some way?
It's so baffling how attempts to do right and move in the right direction seem to be used more as evidence against us vs evidence for us. I'm so confused. CBJ ain't dealing with shit for attempting to bring Babcock back. Boston ain't dealing with shit for giving and then canceling the Mitchell bully contract... why is it that our org seems to have the PR shit magnet?
I understand why there's posters upset about the wording of the tweet. I honestly don't think the Flames org was truly trying to downplay or hide Dube's wrong doing. It was a timing difference issue while the Flames waited to figure out what to do with Dube vs when the shoe was actually going to drop. I'm sure the Flames knew it was coming, but perhaps they had no clue it was coming down the pipeline within that week.
But gaw dang, that stupid tweet ended up getting most NHL fans to look in our direction vs everyone else in that shit boat. We're like the best un-PR team out there.