The Flames capped off the week winning their third out of the last five games, squeaking out a shootout victory against the Dallas Stars Saturday night. The win, however, was far from the talking point of the week as Flames president of Hockey operations, Don Maloney, infuriated the fanbase in a first intermission interview during Wednesday’s 6–2 win against the Buffalo Sabres. In summary, Maloney told Flames TV’s Brendan Parker the idea of a rebuild, or a “re-biggle”, was a pipe dream and the front office has no plans to throw in the towel on the season.
If that wasn’t bad enough, Maloney continued his PR tour this week, sitting down with Sportsnet’s Eric Francis for a 45-minute interview. The two-part article not only reinforced the philosophy discussed on Wednesday, but also described drafting superstars as “fantasy hockey,” and emphasized the need to “fill a building for 82 games” to Francis. Maloney added fuel to the fire on Wednesday and shut off the water supply in his 1-on-1 later in the week.
With Maloney’s week in the headlines, we wanted to know how fans felt about the direction of the Flames’ leadership. We asked, you answered.
Want to take part in Sunday Census polls? We send them out every week on our Twitter at @wincolumnCGY. Follow along or send in ideas for the next poll!
What has our readers excited
We presented the below poll to our readers.
The Vision Makes Sense
This week, it became very apparent to fans that the plan for this team is long-term, and long-term means trying to fight for the playoffs as a 32nd overall team through the first quarter of the season. Roughly 4% of respondents are still willing to accept the vision.
Much of Maloney’s chatter in the last week surrounded the “long-term” and maintaining the team culture they so greatly appreciate Craig Conroy (who has been MIA) established. I can believe that positive team culture and long-term success go hand in hand. What I don’t understand from Maloney’s word salad is how the long-term plan includes players who will be approaching 40 at the time Scotia Place opens.
Skeptical but patient
Roughly 13% of respondents are skeptical of the direction leadership in the front office is taking after this week’s media blunder. It’s evident there is no desire to pursue tanking, but Maloney went one step further, acting as if NHL superstars only exist in fantasy hockey. In his 1-on-1, Francis asks about the impact a first overall pick in this year’s draft could have on the franchise. Maloney responds,
“In a fantasy world, yeah. Unfortunately, this isn’t fantasy hockey. There’s not even agreement anymore McKenna is going first. There’s very few franchise players in every draft. Regardless of where we pick—one, five, 10, our hope is that we get a top-level player, and that’s not our focus at all.”
How could you not be skeptical after hearing something like that? The top five leading scorers in the league are all former top draft picks. Connor Bedard has kicked your butt and personally made your team his practice squad this season. Yet, Don Maloney thinks the Blackhawks’ investment in him is a waste of time, with value only existing in some fantasy league. The only “patience” I could see some fans having left would surround the team’s inevitable demise this season. The glimmering hope that if it isn’t bad enough, it will get worse, and the only option will be to sell at the deadline and re-evaluate the immediate future.
Giving up on the vision
20% of fans have given up on the vision after this week. It was hard not to interpret Maloney’s comments as ignorant. This team sucks, we all know it. Don Maloney knows it. So does Murray Edwards. So does Ryan Huska, the players and the fans. The disconnect on potential routes for a solution surrounds what is perceived as success. We know all too well in the Calgary market what being 4–8 points out of a playoff spot at the trade deadline feels like.
Years and years of middling rosters invested in veterans to maintain a sputtering pilot light of playoff hope. There has always been discussion of keeping the Flames “competitive”, and I think it became clear this week that it could have different meanings for ownership and fans. Prior to Maloney and Francis discussing the pipe-dream fantasy realm of first overall picks, Eric eased into the subject by asking Don if there was any truth to the allegations that ownership is opposed to a rebuild in Calgary. Maloney addressed what he described as the “re-biggle” earlier in the week, saying,
“No, I don’t think that’s accurate. Yet, there’s a dynamic in Canada, you have 82 games, you want to sell tickets and get people to come to your games. It all kind of works together. No one has an appetite to just burn it to the studs, take it all down. There’s examples out there right now where you’re talking potentially decades it can take to rebuild. The draft is such an inexact thing. If you could be guaranteed that you could get a superstar or franchise-level player every year I’m sure ownership of any team would say, ‘okay, yeah, we’ll suffer for two or three years.’ But we just don’t think that’s the way for us.”
As if it couldn’t get worse. The guy came straight out and said their priority is winning enough games to fill seats, not cups. Marketably competitive and cup competitive are two distinctly different things.
Ready to boycott
The landslide victor in this week’s poll, over 60% of Flames fans are ready to boycott. Murray Edwards sent a messenger pigeon to address the fanbase on a mini PR tour, and all he accomplished was pissing off an already disgruntled fanbase further.
Edwards and the Flames would have had more success taking the heat off if they’d employed a magician to perform actual smoke and mirror tricks during the intermission with Brendan Parker. This time, however, it seems fans aren’t falling for Murray’s ploy to pin the blame on his front office. If Flames fans wanted honesty, we got it.
There was no hiding the fact that Flames ownership is, in fact, scared of a rebuild due to the possibility that ticket sales could decrease. For some reason, there is this impression that people don’t like watching teams like Anaheim, San Jose, or Chicago. Because the last time I checked, they’ve all made the playoffs the same number of times as the Flames since 2022.
It is hard to cheer for the Calgary Flames right now
I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t want to cheer for a franchise that measures success as the number of tickets sold in the regular season. The Flames are being managed like a passive revenue stream for Murray Edwards, and if he isn’t willing to invest some money in the short term by retaining some contracts, eating some losses on ticket sales, and looking at the opportunity he has right in front of him, Flames fans truly do need to boycott this team.
More importantly, if those decisions are made this season, Flames fans will support this team through a committed rebuild around an exciting young core.
This is the most pivotal season for this franchise in the last 20 years, and the opportunity in front of them could dictate the next 15 years of the franchise’s future. Please, for the love of everything good, can we stop being so empathetic towards the billionaire owner, whose new arena is over 60% funded by the taxpayers of Alberta and Calgary?
We never leave the middle because there’s no willingness to take a short-term loss. We care, Flames fans. I don’t know if the ownership group cares as much as they would like everyone to believe.
The future is marketably competitive
It has been quite the week for Flames fans, and I don’t imagine it gets any better. With a win against Dallas, I’m sure the front office is convinced a playoff spot is a mere certainty at this point. Not to mention, Craig Conroy’s absence in all of this and Don Maloney’s unwillingness to comment on his GM’s pending contract, which is up at the end of this season. Maybe Craig has resisted the re-biggle plans and has been grounded by Maloney for taking too many trade calls.
Wherever Craig may be, I am almost certain Murray Edwards is sweating, eating a Toblerone and counting his money.
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