Hamilton & Frolik Interviews on FAN960

[hockey.modern]

Was listening to this earlier but didn't have time to write the notes. Those that are interested and if you want to post some of the key notes feel free:

http://www.sportsnet.ca/960/

[Hackey]

Burke as well. Interview starts off talking about THE PARADE.

Burke's order of importance for Flames success:

Treliving
Hartley
Giordano
Feaster

Some interesting stuff on the back half of the interview.

[dammage79]

Feaster did right by the Flames, Burke knows it, Treliving knows it , Hartley knows it and a few of us know it. Glad the man is getting his due for his effort here no matter how spotted his tenure it was.

[Vinny01]

I don't think Burke has given an interview where he hasn't praised Feaster yet. Jay set the team up well with contracts and was the GM at the helm of some pretty good drafts. He did leave a great foundation to start fresh but a fresh start with someone new was needed.

[BigRed]

No Feaster means no Hartley. Was anyone else going to give him another shot? Probably not. Easily the biggest impact move Feaster made.

[BurningSteel]

I like Jay Feaster. Seems alot of others do too.

[MisterJoji]

Would've been nice for Feaster if he was still employed here to see the fruits of his labour. However if Feaster was still here, there'd be no Treliving which means no Dougie Hamilton. Feaster had solid signings and a good draft record but his trades were god awful. No way Jay brings in Hamilton. But huge thanks for Johnny, Monahan, Wideman, Hudler, and Ramo.

[hockey.modern]

Maybe if we somehow got him in the scouting management?

[MisterJoji]

Maybe if we somehow got him in the scouting management?


I think he works for Tampa, involved in the community aspect of the team or something.

[Strange Brew]

The timing of hiring Burke, firing Feaster and hiring BT was exquisite. Feaster did leave the Flames with a lot of great pieces but you won't find many people who would have been confident with him at the helm going forward. Hard to imagine a management transition that could have gone any better. With benefit of hindsight, Feaster deserves the praise he is getting. And he has Brad Richards and the Avalanche management to thank for making the decisions they did.

[Street Pharmacist]

The timing of hiring Burke, firing Feaster and hiring BT was exquisite. Feaster did leave the Flames with a lot of great pieces but you won't find many people who would have been confident with him at the helm going forward. Hard to imagine a management transition that could have gone any better. With benefit of hindsight, Feaster deserves the praise he is getting. And he has Brad Richards and the Avalanche management to thank for making the decisions they did.
And Ryan Smyth

[combustiblefuel]

I think he works for Tampa, involved in the community aspect of the team or something.

He is the executive director of community hockey development.

[combustiblefuel]

No Feaster means no Hartley. Was anyone else going to give him another shot? Probably not. Easily the biggest impact move Feaster made.

Very true. Bob was the coach that lead the Bears to the Calder cup when Feaster was the Bears GM.

[calgarywinning]

The Feaster Bunny was just that full of surprises and some great ones. Thanks for bringing us Coach 'Artley.

[Tacopuck]

No Feaster means no Hartley. Was anyone else going to give him another shot? Probably not. Easily the biggest impact move Feaster made.

IIRC when he was hired he was also being considered for the Habs HC job but chose the Flames because of Feaster.

[getbak]

And Ryan Smyth
He was never serious about acquiring Smyth.

That was just to put pressure on the Oilers to actually give up something of value and on Tanguay to sign his deal. Once that rumour started circulating, Tanguay signed within a day or two.

[Imported_Aussie]

Feaster was the transition guy - the guy in the impossible position, ushering in a rebuild and trading away key players for returns that no one was ever going to be satisfied with. Think about it in a work context - guy gets hired to lead a restructure, and that means things get rough and long serving people move. He gets turfed before it gets better, new guy can come in and build how they want, all because the fall guy took the heat and broke it down. New guy looks great, and many look back at that previous guy as a "hatchet man"

[Vinny01]

Rarely is a guy that was hired to keep a team competitive, then tear the team down able to then rebuild the team back up. Benning is in the same spot as Feaster in Vancouver.

Feaster did some great things most notably bringing in Hartley. His downfall was his big mouth (guaranteeing playoffs annually, and over hyping the crap out of Jankowski) mostly horrible trade record, and reactive nature. Convoy has already said Jay let the other GM's come to him and didn't have the same pulse on the league that Treliving has.

Let's not forget Feaster nearly lost the Flames the Monahan pick for nothing, got terrible returns for Regehr, Bouwmeester and handled the Iginla trade horribly. During much of Feasters run as Flames GM many in the hockey world laughed at the Flames organization as they appeared delusional to the reality of the situation. The Brad Richards deal would have also been a complete disaster.

Luckily though when the dust settled Jay left a lot of good here and at least 2 of his horrible moves (Richards, RoR) never came to fruition. The 3 drafts he was GM for look pretty good and he was at the helm when the Flames stole Johnny Hockey in the 4th round. He made the obvious pick in Monahan but letting his scouts choose Porier over Shinkaurak looks to be the right move. Treliving entered an organization with a couple blue chippers, a 4th overall pick, and plenty of cap space. Bennett was as obvious a choice as Monahan was but to acquire the assets and pull of the Hamilton trade is not something I think Feaster would have been able to do

[CroFlames]

I think it's important to note that Feaster carried the "acting GM" title for a long time. Probably wasn't thrilled about that; and perhaps (even maybe subconsciously) he was hesitant to make certain moves because of the title.

[Parallex]

guaranteeing playoffs annually

I've always thought that was a really unfair criticism. I only saw him do that once and he tried to dodge the question several times but they kept on pushing him for a Yes/No answer and he'd have been crucified had he said "no".

[Fire]

I've always thought that was a really unfair criticism. I only saw him do that once and he tried to dodge the question several times but they kept on pushing him for a Yes/No answer and he'd have been crucified had he said "no".

Bob McKenzie asked Treliving a similar question in his interview and Brad smartly answer something like "There are no guarantees in this business". A much better answer.

[Hackey]

Maybe if we somehow got him in the scouting management?

I think he was good at managing people but I'm sure even he would agree that player assessment isn't his area of strength. Unless you mean more like Button's role which to me wouldn't make much sense either since Button has decades of experience and quite a good recent track record as well.

[Parallex]

Bob McKenzie asked Treliving a similar question in his interview and Brad smartly answer something like "There are no guarantees in this business". A much better answer.

Did Bob McKenzie not accept that as an answer and then ask again and again?

Feaster tried to give a "blahblahblah" answer like that... twice... they kept on pushing for the hard statement. TSN basically forced him to either throw the team under the bus or make the gaurentee... so he made the guarentee which was easily the lesser of the two evils.

[Hackey]

He's a lawyer he should know how to handle questioning.

[Hack&Lube]

What about Hamilton & Frolik? What did they say in the interview?

[Parallex]

He's a lawyer he should know how to handle questioning.

He was a corporate lawyer not a trial lawyer (and that was 25 years ago).

[Jay Random]

Did Bob McKenzie not accept that as an answer and then ask again and again?

Feaster tried to give a "blahblahblah" answer like that... twice... they kept on pushing for the hard statement. TSN basically forced him to either throw the team under the bus or make the gaurentee... so he made the guarentee which was easily the lesser of the two evils.

The correct answer in such a case: ‘Look, if you want a guarantee, go to Canadian Tire. There are no warranties on hockey teams.’

I don't entirely fault Feaster for eventually cracking and giving a stupid answer to the stupid question. But he was definitely ditherington where he should have been clixby.

A 'clabby' conversation is one struck up by a commissionare or cleaning lady in order to avoid any further actual work. The opening gambit is usually designed to provoke the maximum confusion, and therefore the longest possible clabby conversation. It is vitally important to learn the correct, or 'clixby' (q.v.), responses to a clabby gambit, and not to get trapped by a 'ditherington' (q.v.). For instance, if confronted with a clabby gambit such as 'Oh, Mr Smith, I didn't know you'd had your leg off', the ditherington response is 'I haven't....' whereas the clixby is 'Good.'

—The Meaning of Liff

[Hackey]

He was a corporate lawyer not a trial lawyer (and that was 25 years ago).

I was joking around. I'm just glad we have Brad who in my opinion does everything better than Feaster.