OT: Souray: To the people of Edmonton

[joestevens29]

Which is odd given how many examples we have from just the past few years of players who have come from this org and found themselves shocked by how right other orgs do it. Petry in Montreal most recently. Hopefully we'll see a culture shift now with Nicholson and Charelli setting the pace.

I'd really like to know what Montreal did that Petry was so surprised with. I understand the other guys that took shots at practices and such, but I kinda thought we were decent to players. Didn't we spend millions trying to make their dressing room and facilities feel like home?

 

[Vagabond]

I'd really like to know what Montreal did that Petry was so surprised with. I understand the other guys that took shots at practices and such, but I kinda thought we were decent to players. Didn't we spend millions trying to make their dressing room and facilities feel like home?

Sure, but then MacT hired Eakins. He also mentioned Eakins had so much in common with himself. Then you look how Eakins tore down memorabilia and took the Ping-Pong table away. Eakins was a reflection of the type of management this organization was, a bunch of ******. Many players leaving this organization mentioned what kind of gong show it was here.

N.Schultz
Perron
Petry
Bryzgalov
Fasth
Penner
Souray
Pronger
Comrie

All these players have mentioned funny things towards the organization.

Look how they handled Krueger as well.

The management in this organization was a complete joke until recently.

 

[MrM]

I was a Souray defender back in the day. I felt he was getting a raw deal by the management and thus the media that is in bed with the management(Stauffer)and thus the fans who get all the information from the media. Enjoy retirement. I'd love for Souray to once again wear Oilers colours if we do another Oilers legends game.

 

[thadd]

*sigh*

This is so hard for me to say.
I've said it very few times in my life...

But I was wrong.
When the Souray drama came in I was willing to point fingers at players despite the fact that there were clear signs of stupidity from all the people upstairs.

There. I said it. That's all you're getting till 2020.

No, I'm 100% serious.

 

[mervincm]

At the time (and partially still) the Oilers were a fragile entity and it came through in much of what they did. They lacked the confidence of a top tier team, and thus over-reacted to the slight. This more than anything is why I loved winning the CMD golden ticket.

Sheldon was one of my favourites at the time. He was a valuable asset that in all likelihood was not properly taken care of. As an Oilers fan I wish that he did not go public with his complaint, as it hurt us as an organization publicly. But honestly I wish more that the problem didn't exist in the first place.

From what we know of him, he is an emotional guy, a hot head even, it's not a shocker he chose to speak up when so many likely suffered in silence (at least publicly)

Thanks Sheldon, you were an awesome Oiler, and I am sticking by you.

 

[rboomercat90]

I'd really like to know what Montreal did that Petry was so surprised with. I understand the other guys that took shots at practices and such, but I kinda thought we were decent to players. Didn't we spend millions trying to make their dressing room and facilities feel like home?

I think it takes a lot more than just throwing money around to make players feel welcome and happy. If anything maybe it'll just help them tolerate it a bit more and perhaps keep them quiet but if they're still being treated like garbage they'll resent the environment.

I know it's been several years, but we did make them practice on Christmas Day one year. Doesn't seem like a big deal but that was a direct violation of the CBA. Team was fined for it. Lowe acknowledged they knew it was against the rules and allowed it to happen anyway. That incident left me with the impression they felt the rules didn't apply to them or needed to be followed. It wasn't long after that when we really started seeing that players didn't want to come here. Who knows what else was going on that we never heard about? Seems likely whatever may have been happening was well known amongst other players around the league because they were avoiding this team. As fans we heard nothing until Souray came along and shed some light on his situation with Tambellini and the medical staff.

To me it looked Like Lowe and company had earned a poor reputation with the NHLPA during his early days as GM and the organization was never able to shake it. Even with him moving out of the GM position, it didn't seem to matter, the Oilers reputation around the league was what it was. Just a really lousy place to play.

 

[Pressure]

I'm one of the few that had ZERO problems with what he said. He could have handled it a little differently in public, but he is a passionate guy who gave it his all in Edmonton.

 

[oobga]

I can't recall my stance on the whole Souray thing, but I do know that the Oilers Org managed to turn the majority of fans against him and protect themselves from criticism. It's too bad the media couldn't have dug deeper at the time and been able to discover and expose how disorganized and terribly run the Oilers org was becoming under Lowe's leadership. That was an early hint that unfortunately went missed by almost everyone. But hey, at least we got McDavid out of it all

 

[Replacement*]

Not nearly enough is made of this point. Tamby and Katz, cause I don't believe Tamby even took a **** without checking with Katz first, decided to make the Souray incident into a huge firestorm. I have to ask myself why. The fact that the team was going into intentional tank mode seems a likely reason to me .... "Thanks for shooting off your mouth Sheldon. We were looking for ways to make our roster less competitive next season, and you just handed us one easy way to accomplish that. Say goodbye to your career son."

Any normal manager in any profession can handle things like the Souray complaints without breaking a sweat. Its kind of Management 101 to be honest.

Nailed it. We have fans on this site who have been wailing and moaning for seven years now for someone, anyone, to do something about the state of the organization. Some have even claimed to be losing their love of hockey because of this joke management group. So one day a guy steps up and takes some fairly plainly worded shots at management (goes out of his way to say that he's only talking about management, not the team, not the organization, not the crest, not the fans), and what do those crying fans do? They call him a clown and throw roses at the management for running him out of town. It beggars belief.

Really solid series of posts there Replacement. And if I recall you were no massive Souray fan either. I hope Souray reads this site so he knows that fans in Edmonton wish him the best.

Thanks Harpoon. I had consciously waited for you to post in the thread out of respect of you being the first poster one should think of in the Souray saga as you had this nailed throughout and you defended Souray throughout.

Myself, I wasn't a Souray fan when we got him as I didn't think Defensively he was solid enough. I was wanting a Willy Mitchell. I learned to like Sourays play in at least he was one of the few that competed and he wasn't easy to play against and cleared traffic out in front of net. What I liked is he clearly brought it here and you could tell he wanted to be here.

The thing I was most critical of was when he got into a fight and injured his hand after it already being injured and with Souray having already had injury trouble. I called him out on that and thought that throwing them on that occasion was a poor decision. But in fairness Souray is a warrior and can't shut it down. Some people can't. I shouldn't have blamed somebody for having the passion to fight even in moments when they perhaps shouldn't.

 

[DisgruntledGoat*]

I don't think that management was necessarily awful towards their players. But I do think that, as a professional, you want to work for a professional organization that treats you like a professional. In that sense, I don't think pro sports is much different than the regular working world... I work in a field where I've been in several different offices and some have their eye on the ball and are totally professional. Others are not. If you care and are dedicated to your craft, you want to work in the former. I think that's where the Oilers are lacking.

Souray always struck me as a pretty blunt and tough-minded guy. I doubt his feelings were hurt when no one from management inquired about his injury progress. But he'd been around long enough to see it as an amateur move.

I have no evidence of this, but this is how I've always viewed the OBC. Not necessarily mean-spirited but amateurish and embarassingly so. True pros will see through that quickly and stay away.

Tom Renney is not the type to talk trash in the media but I'd love to hear what he thought going from Edmonton to Detroit. I bet that would be fascinating.

 

[popo]

Anyone recall the time our captain Ethan Moreau was about to fight Iginla? Souray then stepped in the way, waived Moreau aside, and took him on? It was Souray wanting a rematch after injuring himself in a previous fight with Iginla. It didn't amount to a great fight but, it really made him appear to be the alpha dog on the team.

 

[Spiff The Spaceman]

Anyone recall the time our captain Ethan Moreau was about to fight Iginla? Souray then stepped in the way, waived Moreau aside, and took him on? It was Souray wanting a rematch after injuring himself in a previous fight with Iginla. It didn't amount to a great fight but, it really made him appear to be the alpha dog on the team.

weller?

 

[popo]

weller?

Right.... bad memory on my part. I thought Souray attempted to have a rematch fight with Iginla where that happened.

 

[Aerrol]

Sure, but then MacT hired Eakins. He also mentioned Eakins had so much in common with himself. Then you look how Eakins tore down memorabilia and took the Ping-Pong table away. Eakins was a reflection of the type of management this organization was, a bunch of ******. Many players leaving this organization mentioned what kind of gong show it was here.

N.Schultz
Perron
Petry
Bryzgalov
Fasth
Penner
Souray
Pronger
Comrie

All these players have mentioned funny things towards the organization.

Look how they handled Krueger as well.

The management in this organization was a complete joke until recently.

And Belov, and Smid ... And for players still here, Eberle and RNH... Yakupov through his agent. Only Taylor "locker room cancer" Hall has been almost completely without complaints. And I'm pretty sure he's been cleared to play (rushed by management?) before he was fully healed more than once. Sound familiar? How about RNH playing on a shoulder they KNEW needed surgery for almost a full season.

I'm willing to have hope that our new management will be handling things differently, but boy do we have a long ways to go before we're even close to a 'professionally' run org.

edit: in case it's not clear, the locker room cancer bit was a dig at people who have questioned Hall's character. I think he's got character in spades, and the outbursts we've seen has been the losing getting to him.

 

[Replacement*]

And Belov, and Smid ... And for players still here, Eberle and RNH... Yakupov through his agent. Only Taylor "locker room cancer" Hall has been almost completely without complaints. And I'm pretty sure he's been cleared to play (rushed by management?) before he was fully healed more than once. Sound familiar? How about RNH playing on a shoulder they KNEW needed surgery for almost a full season.

I'm willing to have hope that our new management will be handling things differently, but boy do we have a long ways to go before we're even close to a 'professionally' run org.

edit: in case it's not clear, the locker room cancer bit was a dig at people who have questioned Hall's character. I think he's got character in spades, and the outbursts we've seen has been the losing getting to him.

I see it a little differently. For some reason Hall and the boys at least temporarily bought into Eakins swill. Eakins, who I called out at once commonly engaged in scapegoating and fault finding narrative. He's a very caustic man that looks down at others. His comments imbued with suggestions like "When I was in the pressbox as a player (HS) I wasn't just eating popcorn...." When one dives into the psyche of such a comment, and he made plenty of them, theres a kind of scorn in it that suggests he's better than others, more dedicated, and easily looks down on colleagues or players.
So when Eakins quickly started barking at and benching players like Yak and Smyth these players were dead to the team. Eakins did that. The org was happy to have someone like that calling out players. Lowe was probably grinning ear to ear that Smyth got benched.

Eakins poison had an effect on the players on this club. But that snakeoil was bought and paid for by an org that views present players mostly with contempt.

 

[Aerrol]

I see it a little differently. For some reason Hall and the boys at least temporarily bought into Eakins swill. Eakins, who I called out at once commonly engaged in scapegoating and fault finding narrative. He's a very caustic man that looks down at others. His comments imbued with suggestions like "When I was in the pressbox as a player (HS) I wasn't just eating popcorn...." When one dives into the psyche of such a comment, and he made plenty of them, theres a kind of scorn in it that suggests he's better than others, more dedicated, and easily looks down on colleagues or players.
So when Eakins quickly started barking at and benching players like Yak and Smyth these players were dead to the team. Eakins did that. The org was happy to have someone like that calling out players. Lowe was probably grinning ear to ear that Smyth got benched.

Eakins poison had an effect on the players on this club. But that snakeoil was bought and paid for by an org that views present players mostly with contempt.

I think Hall bought in because, frankly, he's always been the good soldier and was the team's best player so he wasn't getting criticism. Hall has never struck me as that cerebral of a guy so as long as coach says he's doing good, I could see him 'buying in'. Ebs and RNH? Maybe for a short while but I think they both saw through Eakins' stupidity fairly quickly. Especially Eberle. His skyrocket in scoring after Eakins was fired and his comments about it "being nice to play my game instead of just dumping shots on net" were very telling. Nuge has made subtler but similar comments about shot selection.

I agree 100% about Eakins' blatant scapegoating though. He did it almost from the get go. I can't imagine how he found any success with that kind of coaching, even at the AHL level.

 

[oobga]

I think Hall bought in because, frankly, he's always been the good soldier and was the team's best player so he wasn't getting criticism. Hall has never struck me as that cerebral of a guy so as long as coach says he's doing good, I could see him 'buying in'. Ebs and RNH? Maybe for a short while but I think they both saw through Eakins' stupidity fairly quickly. Especially Eberle. His skyrocket in scoring after Eakins was fired and his comments about it "being nice to play my game instead of just dumping shots on net" were very telling. Nuge has made subtler but similar comments about shot selection.

I agree 100% about Eakins' blatant scapegoating though. He did it almost from the get go. I can't imagine how he found any success with that kind of coaching, even at the AHL level.

I think Eakins is a great salesman and he knew which guys to build relationships with to keep his job. Hall was an obvious target, also Ference and MacT. Wasn't enough to save him of course, that 20 losses in 21 games, yeah, don't care how good you are at selling yourself and getting people on your side, there's no hiding from that. Thank goodness we brought in more people in management that Eakins couldn't get to to finally get rid of that swindler.

 

[Blue And Orange]

I too was one of those fans who supported management for sticking it to Souray back in 2010 when he called out our team. But back then, I was too naive to realize how horrible the Oilers organization was.

Looking back at it, i have no problem with Souray calling out management. It's surreal to see what the Oilers management are today than it was with Lowe/Mac-T and Tambo.

 

[rboomercat90]

I think Hall bought in because, frankly, he's always been the good soldier and was the team's best player so he wasn't getting criticism. Hall has never struck me as that cerebral of a guy so as long as coach says he's doing good, I could see him 'buying in'. Ebs and RNH? Maybe for a short while but I think they both saw through Eakins' stupidity fairly quickly. Especially Eberle. His skyrocket in scoring after Eakins was fired and his comments about it "being nice to play my game instead of just dumping shots on net" were very telling. Nuge has made subtler but similar comments about shot selection.

I agree 100% about Eakins' blatant scapegoating though. He did it almost from the get go. I can't imagine how he found any success with that kind of coaching, even at the AHL level.

I always got the impression that after all the coaching changes that happened in the early part of his career that Hall was terrified of being labelled a coach killer. He publicly defended all his coaches here from Renney to Nelson. I never suspected he was really a big believer in Eakins or was in any way disappointed when he as fired. He learned early on from what he'd seen here that it was best to keep his mouth shut.

 

[Aerrol]

I always got the impression that after all the coaching changes that happened in the early part of his career that Hall was terrified of being labelled a coach killer. He publicly defended all his coaches here from Renney to Nelson. I never suspected he was really a big believer in Eakins or was in any way disappointed when he as fired. He learned early on from what he'd seen here that it was best to keep his mouth shut.

Humm. I had never really considered that angle, but it does make sense. We'll never know either way, but thank God Eakins is gone. What a joke.

 

[Replacement*]

I think Hall bought in because, frankly, he's always been the good soldier and was the team's best player so he wasn't getting criticism. Hall has never struck me as that cerebral of a guy so as long as coach says he's doing good, I could see him 'buying in'. Ebs and RNH? Maybe for a short while but I think they both saw through Eakins' stupidity fairly quickly. Especially Eberle. His skyrocket in scoring after Eakins was fired and his comments about it "being nice to play my game instead of just dumping shots on net" were very telling. Nuge has made subtler but similar comments about shot selection.

I agree 100% about Eakins' blatant scapegoating though. He did it almost from the get go. I can't imagine how he found any success with that kind of coaching, even at the AHL level.

WE see it very similarly in a lot of respects.

How Eakins was successful at the AHL level is that he plays favorites based on interaction. Brown nose all over Eakins and its the quickest ride to toi, player use, featured use, and possible promotion. it was patently clear Eakins gained favor of, and rewarded certain players while trying to deepsix others. Even in AHL this was apparent.
That Eakins was capable of ******** on some players was actually viewed as an attractive quality by our management that hold most players in contempt.

For Lowe I think he started disliking players just before Comrie. it was highly ironic that Lowe, a player that was front center in player contract disclosure as a bargaining right just a decade earlier was highly averse to players bargaining in his new positions as coach and manager. Lowe is a huge hypocrite, undeniably, and I doubt he even realizes it.

With MacT for sure the contempt with players was there by the time he was dealing with Dustin Penner. It was just palpable.

But these guys were answering to such Neanderthals as Cal Nichols who once told Chris Pronger that his wifes attitude was a problem and that he should wear the pants and tell her how its going to be.

This org was such a nonstop clownshow of insular hateful reactionary feelings. Also demonstrated in which press was allowed primary access to the zoo and the Oilers attempt to control such things.

 

[Up the Irons]

I'm one of the few that had ZERO problems with what he said. He could have handled it a little differently in public, but he is a passionate guy who gave it his all in Edmonton.

let's not forget he was somewhat set up by Spector. He got Souray relaxed over a few beers, they were shootin the ---- like a couple of buddies, then suddenly Spector makes a story out of it. It's a classis reporter's trick: make him think you're his buddy and you're just BSing, then, Bam!!! big story.

I'll always hold Spector at least partly culpable for that mess.

But Souray was clearly not out of line. This organization was a joke. It is very easy to assume that Lowe an Co. were probably wrong, because they were wrong so very often.

Bottom line? Tambo shoulders most of the blame, Lowe a little less, and Spector.

 

[Up the Irons]

WE see it very similarly in a lot of respects.

How Eakins was successful at the AHL level is that he plays favorites based on interaction. Brown nose all over Eakins and its the quickest ride to toi, player use, featured use, and possible promotion. it was patently clear Eakins gained favor of, and rewarded certain players while trying to deepsix others. Even in AHL this was apparent.
That Eakins was capable of ******** on some players was actually viewed as an attractive quality by our management that hold most players in contempt.

For Lowe I think he started disliking players just before Comrie. it was highly ironic that Lowe, a player that was front center in player contract disclosure as a bargaining right just a decade earlier was highly averse to players bargaining in his new positions as coach and manager. Lowe is a huge hypocrite, undeniably, and I doubt he even realizes it.

With MacT for sure the contempt with players was there by the time he was dealing with Dustin Penner. It was just palpable.

But these guys were answering to such Neanderthals as Cal Nichols who once told Chris Pronger that his wifes attitude was a problem and that he should wear the pants and tell her how its going to be.

This org was such a nonstop clownshow of insular hateful reactionary feelings. Also demonstrated in which press was allowed primary access to the zoo and the Oilers attempt to control such things.

well said. On Eakins, look how he made Ference the captain, because he was good offseason fitness freak.

The Lowe era will live in infamy as the worst run organization of all time. And what's ironic, is that as long as these clowns (Lowe, Mact and Howson) remain employed their legacy will endure.

They're still the dumbest guys around, or they're mortgaged to the hilt and need the money.

Hey, let Katz keep em around. they'll look worse in the long run. looks good on em.

 

[rboomercat90]

let's not forget he was somewhat set up by Spector. He got Souray relaxed over a few beers, they were shootin the ---- like a couple of buddies, then suddenly Spector makes a story out of it. It's a classis reporter's trick: make him think you're his buddy and you're just BSing, then, Bam!!! big story.

I'll always hold Spector at least partly culpable for that mess.

But Souray was clearly not out of line. This organization was a joke. It is very easy to assume that Lowe an Co. were probably wrong, because they were wrong so very often.

Bottom line? Tambo shoulders most of the blame, Lowe a little less, and Spector.

I never knew about the Spector angle in this story.

 

[CornKicker]

i got peppered by posters here when i said that the oilers were idiots for not letting souray come to training camp. i got told he was washed up couldnt play any more cancer etc etc etc. it really sucks the way he was treated. looking back everything he said was right.