Leafs Fire GM Brian Burke

[chuck]

c/p
canadian press


TORONTO - The Toronto Maple Leafs dropped a bomb on the hockey world Wednesday, firing general manager Brian Burke and replacing him with his protege Dave Nonis.
The surprising news comes just days before the lockout-shortened season is about to begin.
The league and its players agreed to a tentative agreement over the weekend to end the lockout. The league's board of governors is holding a ratification vote Wednesday in New York.
Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment president Tom Anselmi made the announcement at a hastily called news conference in Toronto. He said Burke will remain with the Leafs as a senior adviser.
The decision came after MLSE's new ownership group conducted an exhaustive review of all the company's properties and concluded it was time for a change in the Leafs front office.
"We've decided to make a leadership change and move in a different direction for the general manager role," said Anselmi.
MLSE chairman Larry Tanenbaum, who is in New York to attend the NHL meetings said it was "a decision of the board."
When asked if he had a role in the decision too he said "Well I'm on the board."
Anselmi said there was not "one incident or any one thing" that led to Burke's dismissal.
"This was a decision that the board and myself collectively made," Anselmi said. "It's the product of a conversation that has been going on for some time."
The sale of MLSE to BCE and Rogers Communications was finalized in August. Anselmi said the operational review began sometime after that.
Nonis and Burke have a long history after working together in Vancouver before coming to the Leafs.
"I've worked for Brian for most of my adult life and he's always been a great friend and mentor," Nonis said.
Burke held the Leafs job for just over four years. The team missed the playoffs in every season under his watch and is coming off a disappointing 13th-place finish in the Eastern Conference in 2011-12.
They made a head coaching change late last season, hiring Randy Carlyle to replace Ron Wilson.
Before being named GM and team president in November 2008, Burke spent three-plus seasons managing the Anaheim Ducks and guided them to a Stanley Cup win in 2007.
He also previously served in the NHL front office as senior vice-president and director of hockey operations and as general manager of the Vancouver Canucks and Hartford Whalers. The 57-year-old Providence, R.I., native was also GM of the 2010 U.S. Olympic men's hockey team.
He arrived in Toronto as a somewhat divisive figure. Some fans hailed him as the saviour of the franchise, while others worried he wouldn't be capable of rebuilding a team that hasn't appeared in a playoff game since 2004.
Burke wasn't afraid to make some big moves during his time with the Maple Leafs.
He landed Dion Phaneuf in a seven-player deal with Calgary in 2010 and the defenceman was named team captain. But Burke's most hotly debated trade was a 2009 deal with Boston, when he acquired sniper Phil Kessel for two first-round draft picks and a second-round selection.
The Bruins used the picks to select star forward Tyler Seguin, Dougie Hamilton and Jared Knight.
Nonis won't have much time to prepare.
The league and union reached a tentative agreement to end the 113-day lockout last weekend. Pending ratification from both sides, the NHL is targeting a 48-game season that would begin Jan. 19.
"We're going to have a very short window in order to make some decisions about this hockey team," said Nonis. "We're going to focus on that right now."

[chuck]

all i can say is he had his chance. 5 yrs without a post-season.....seems logical to move another direction.

[chuck]

Brian Burke Info:

Hired: November 29, 2008
Toronto Record: 123-135-42

... Notable Trades / Signings
- July 1, 2009 - Signed Komisarek to a 5-year deal

- September 18, 2009 - Traded for Phil Kessel 2 1st round picks (Seguin/Hamilton) and a 2nd round pick (Jared Knight)

- January 31, 2010 - 7 player trade with Calgary, Leafs acquire Phanuef

- January 31, 2010 - traded for JS Giguere

- February 9, 2011 - Traded Francois Beauchemin to Anaheim for Joffrey Lupul and Jake Gardiner

- June 23, 2012 - Traded Luke Schenn to Flyers for James Van Riemsdyk

- July 1, 2012 - Signed Jay McClement

Fired/Hired
- Fired Ron Wilson March 2, 2012
- Hired Randy Carlyle

[chuck]

Should of canned his useless butt 3 years ago.Stevie Wonder has a better eye for hockey players.

lol...well 3 yrs ago most were still optimistic. when they first brought him in, i thought, good! finally a gm that will know what to do to build a competitive team. well, he did build a decent farm team...but still the leafs are no closer to lord stanly than they were when he arrived.

but give it up for the maple leaf organization. they gave burke 5 yrs to build a contender....he failed. no playoffs even? they stuck to their guns and canned him. if he had done better...sure renew his contract...but he didn't. he had plenty of opportunities at trade deadlines and throughout the yrs to do great things, but in his stubborness he did NOTHING! glad he is is dismissed. this is toronto, CANADA burkey boy!.

[mclovin]

Go figure,seeing Burke is gone now I just might start cheering for Toronto
:lolpound: who I kidding :)

[chuck]

Go figure,seeing Burke is gone now I just might start cheering for Toronto
:lolpound: who I kidding :)

haha mac...don't be a jumpin' on the bandwagon now....its already full!

but alot of mixed reviews about this termination. i admit he made a few good moves...like lupul and gardiner for beauchimen....kessel is still iffy...but he can put up 50 if healthy.and linemates healthy. phaneuf another big name, and most recently JVR...which i like. but wow,, he had some major blunders....armstrong, lombardi....couldn't sign a decent goalie....had cream of the crop to choose from with UFA's...but failed to sign anyone? so yeah in the end i still think management did right...no playoffs= no burke.

[chuck]

c/p the star.com

There was a “wake” at Brian Burkee’s place because that’s how hockey people deal with the everyday insecurity of their sport — through dark macabre humour.
Losing a job in the sport is felt like a death in the family, and so on Wednesday night there were spirits and libations as would befit an Irish funeral with Burke surrounded by his Maple Leaf hockey lieutenants as he took leave of centre stage in this most intense hockey city.
Don’t lament Burke’s lot in life, although he’s had some terrible situations to deal with in recent years including the loss of his son. Don’t imagine he won’t work again or that the shock and devastation he felt over being fired by the Leafs slightly more than four years after arriving in town as a hockey saviour will last too very long.
If you’re a Leaf fan, however, lament the ridiculous way in which this was done. Lament the way this perennially underachieving organization, even with new ownership in place, talks about winning and then proceeds in a manner that is about anything but winning.
Only the Leafs, you might argue, would stand by during a 113-day lockout with their hockey office in place and then immediately after that lockout ended dismiss the person running that office.
OK, maybe the sad-sack New York Islanders would do something bizarre like this. But who else? No quality franchises.
This is the first really big sports decision undertaken by the partnership of Bell and Rogers that now controls Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. Not only was it done in such a way that should make Leaf fans very worried, it may also be an indication why this corporate partnership of media rivals is destined not to last.
Burke got the axe Wednesday morning because Bell boss George Cope, after months of campaigning for Burke’s dismissal, finally wore out the Rogers suits and Larry Tanenbaum. The deal is that Rogers and Bell will vote as a bloc on all matters, and Cope is the lead actor in this stage play. It took him a while but he got his way and Rogers had to roll with the tide.
You can make the case that Burke didn’t produce the results to keep his job, although 3½ years is really too short a time frame to judge a GM in any sport.
What you can’t make is a case for firing him now. That’s just absurd. It’s downright Ballard-like. It’s like Punch Imlach learning he was out for a second time as Leaf hockey boss when he pulled up to Maple Leaf Gardens and saw his parking spot was gone.
It’s right up there with Steve Stavro denying Cliff Fletcher the chance to bring Wayne Gretzky to town on a cheap contract. It’s right up there with Richard Peddie telling the world that John Ferguson Jr. no longer had the right to make a decision on who would coach the team, even though JFJ was still the GM.
It’s the kind of blinkered hockey-decision-without-hockey-thinking move the Leafs have made too often over the past 20 years — heck, over the last 46 years — and why this team has had such limited success.
Cope didn’t like Burke’s style, his manners, his profanity, his lifestyle. Some people don’t. Burke is a polarizing character, to be sure, and makes no apologies for that.
The Rogers people might not have been in love with Burke either but they weren’t prepared to axe him. Until Wednesday. It was like the decision-makers rolled out of bed, didn’t like their eggs Benedict and decided to fire the GM of the hockey team.
Now Dave Nonis, just as he did in Vancouver nine years ago, succeeds his good friend Burke. But this time it’s more awkward. He may even be pressured to trade youngsters and prospects to acquire 33-year-old Vancouver goalie Roberto Luongo.
No wonder Nonis pleaded with chief operating officer Tom Anselmi and chairman Larry Tanenbaum to at least let Burke finish this 48-game season, which begins Jan. 19.
But the decision had already been made. Burke, who had been scheduled to be on Hamilton Bulldogs owner Michael Andlauer’s plane at 9 a.m. to attend the NHL board of governors meeting in New York to ratify the new collective bargaining agreement, was told not to get on board because he had been removed as GM.
He was skewered less by what he accomplished or didn’t accomplish than by what he said and what he promised. He made a deal for a 21-year-old winger named Phil Kessel early in his tenure, the same Kessel who finished sixth in NHL scoring last season, and gave up high draft picks to get it.
Many saw that as an unnecessary attempt to rush the process. Asked by this space why he did it, Burke said: “Because if I don’t get this team in the playoffs in three years they’ll be all over me.”
And guess what? He was right. Nonis is the 14th person to be named GM over the past 96 years of Leaf history. But nine of those GMs have operated in the last 24 years.
This city has no patience to wait and let one person take his time building a winner, and ownership has become reflective of that knee-jerk impatience.
Bet on it: If Nonis doesn’t make it happen within two years he’ll be gone too.
Not committing to continuity and stability is part of the reason the Leafs have been out of the playoffs since 2004. Now it appears the Bell-Rogers partnership will behave the same way as did its predecessors.
That’s why there are never hockey parades in this city.
Only hockey wakes.