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Vancouver Canucks Get Capped
by Alanah McGinley on 04/30/08 at 09:10 PM ET
Comments (5)
Update May 5th: The Vancouver Sun provides details of the hiring, confirmed by the Canucks.
At Mike Gillis’s introductory press conference as the new Vancouver Canucks GM, he had mentioned something about creating a new executive position dedicated entirely to a guy using a calculator.
Tim Wharnsby at the Globe & Mail says it’s done:
New Vancouver Canucks general manager Mike Gillis is on the verge of adding his first executive to the front office in former Phoenix Coyotes assistant GM Laurence Gilman.
Gilman will be the Canucks salary capologist. He received his start in the NHL as a legal advisor with the Winnipeg Jets and moved with the franchise to Phoenix. Before he was fired along with general manager Mike Barnett a year ago, he also ran the Coyotes AHL affiliate in Utah.
Also in the Globe & Mail tonight, William Houston is entertained by the dueling Vancouver columnists and their varying degrees of dislike/delight with the decision to ‘cap’ Dave Nonis and hire Gillis himself.
When Gillis was confirmed, [Tony] Gallagher approved of Aquilini’s “thinking outside the box” and “handing over the reigns [sic] of the team to a successful player agent who has turned down at least two other teams who have pursued him for GM posts in the past.”
But Gallagher’s opinion wasn’t shared by many in the Vancouver news media. Most commentators felt sacking Nonis had been a mistake – a reckless move by an owner ill-qualified to judge the general manager’s work.
[Ed] Willes and [Iain] MacIntyre were skeptical of Gillis’s credentials.
Responding to Gallagher’s columns in support of Gillis, MacIntyre wrote that Gillis had “a friend in the media singularly devoted to getting him the job.”
I’ll admit, it is entertaining… but still sort of spooky witnessing Gallagher’s man-crush on any person associated with this team. (So many years of hate suddenly vanishing when faced with the opportunity to write his Odes to a GM. And they were quite lovely. Didn’t know he had it in him.)
Anyway, especially interesting are Houston’s remarks that owner Francesco Aquilini contacted both The Province and the Vancouver Sun with complaints about the recent news coverage.
And that just has ‘bad idea’ written all over it, Frances. How do you follow that up exactly? Threaten to yank Iain MacIntyre’s or Ed Willes’s press passes?
I’d love to watch the fall-out of something like that…
Filed in: vancouver canucks | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: laurence+gilman, mike+gillis, vancouver+canucks,
Comments
Canucks didn’t need one because Nonis would never get close to it 
Posted by Devin from Victoria on 05/01/08 at 10:46 AM ET
Maybe they just hired a high school kid with a calculator - like you pay a neighborhood kid to mow your lawn for the summer.
Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 05/01/08 at 12:01 PM ET
@ YzermanZetterberg : Nonis was the canucks capologist and GM… he did both.
Posted by Beyore on 05/01/08 at 01:34 PM ET
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About Canucks & Beyond
Alanah McGinley has been blogging hockey since 2003, sharing opinions, rants and not-so-deep thoughts with anyone who will listen. In addition to writing Canucks & Beyond and helping manage Kukla’s Korner, Alanah is one of the founders and co-hosts of The Crazy Canucks Podcast, as featured at Canucks.com.
She has contributed pieces to FoxSports.com and the New York Times Slapshot blog, as well as other stray destinations in cyberspace.
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The Canucks didn’t have a capologist prior to this? I thought every team in every major professional sports league with a “salary cap” (i.e., NHL, NFL, NBA) pretty much had to have one given the complexities involved.
Posted by YzermanZetterberg on 05/01/08 at 08:44 AM ET