I posted my thoughts on reddit about the Canucks as Titans and I will repost them here because I feel they are suitable for this forum:
I want to start this by saying that I really enjoyed the Titans' run last year and I really thought the team was something special. I showed my wife replays, started to follow the players individually, and overall, became a fan.
It's unfortunate how this have transpired this past offseason and up to today, but if you are a fan of the Vancouver Canucks, you could have seen this coming from a mile away.
Some backstory: Canucks Sports & Entertainment (owned by the Aquilini Investment Group) also owns the Vancouver Titans (same team colours as the Canucks, if you didn't know already). They are no mom-and-pop operation – the Aquilinis are billionaires and they will spend as much as any team in the league to round out their roster. They will go after star players, and they will hunt the best teams. Sniping Runaway was totally within their MO – I have no doubt the presentation the Titans made to the Runaway players to get them to join their team was top notch, first class, all-out.
In the past ten years, the Vancouver Canucks hockey team have had a spotty reputation in the league, and it really hurt the brand and the media perception of the club, especially during the 2011 Stanley Cup run where the Canucks also happened to lose in the finals. They had a lot of “rat” players which other teams did not like. The Aquilinis have been trying to turn that reputation around, while continuing to be a winner. The Canucks went from detestable winner, to a loveable loser, to endearing up-and-comer in past decade. Anyone who hated the Canucks in 2011 probably doesn’t feel the same way today. The current rendition of the Canucks is essentially a league darling if you are a hockey fan, icing continual rookie-of-the-year finalists and winners. Their management team was gutted and went from a pretty tough lawyer/former player agent running the team (Mike Gillis) to a lovable-goofball and drafting specialist Jim Benning. They also brought back former team star Trevor Linden for a period of time to smooth things over with the fans as they rebuilt the team.
If I had to be honest with myself, Team Runaway as Titans was never going to last. They were a bit of a cheap trick to get the Titans on the map, but without a 100% buy-in from the players that they were now the Titans and no longer Runaway, fate was sealed. People would often refer to the Titans as Runaway, and that wasn’t going to fly. Runaway being mentioned in parallel with the Titans at every step means Runaway is a parasite on the Canucks Sports & Entertainment brand, and there can only be so many hands on the wheel. The Aquilinis are Vancouver die-hards, and they will expect their players to move to and/or play in Vancouver more than the Korean players were ever willing to commit. The Titans are going to expect their players do attend community outreach events, charity events, etc, and the atmosphere with the Titans will feel very A-league corporate. This is going to rub some players the wrong way. If the entire team wasn’t ready to move over, maintaining a skeleton crew wasn’t going to work either, and you may as well start fresh as fast as you can.
In my opinion, the straw that broke the camel's back was Bumper. He already had a bit of a reputation as an agitator who wasn’t afraid to speak his mind in interviews. On paper, this isn’t something the Canucks want for their brand – they want everyone to tow the party line. Bumper was a liability, and when he threw those comp matches last year, that spelled the end of his time in Vancouver. If Bumper was a big presence in the room, or a “glue guy”, and Vancouver misread that, then that’s on them, but I understand the premise of his removal. Bumper was not removed for any reason relating to the meta or his in-game performance – it was entirely based on persona. The irony is that, despite a focus on branding/maintaining a community-friendly image, this has really blown up in Vancouver’s face. Gamers have a higher tolerance for rage-quitting, strong language, and downright mean-ness. In some ways, it sells the emotion and brings in more fans than winning does. As a fan of the Titans I really started to fall in love with the players and their different personalities, and how they rounded each other out. Chemistry is hard to build, and sometimes it’s easier to find it in the wild.
From the perspective of the Korean players, I understand why they don’t want to change their entire life for a game which may not even be popular in 5-10 years. Pro gaming may not even be the desired career path of a lot of players down the line, so why compromise your future? Not exactly a match made in heaven.
What you may be witnessing with the Titans may end up being the norm in OWL moving forward. Teams staying together for more than 2 years is going to be a strange sight, as the team must stay competitive the entire time as well. Why keep throwing the same shit at the wall if it’s not sticking? You have a limited time to compete. Rumours are that the Titans will bring in a complete squad once again, and that this time it will be North American players, which fits the bill outlined above. Expect these players to move to Vancouver or spend a larger percentage of their time there.
Anyway, sorry if my thoughts were disjointed but I thought it might clarify some of the corporate-level decisions from the perspective of someone who follows the Canucks and the Titans.
