Quote:
Originally Posted by Karl Racki
Murray Edwards made his fortune running public companies. He is not a hockey guy.
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Very interesting post. I enjoyed it a lot.
I'm just not sure that customers of an entertainment company are the same thing as investors. Maybe you agree with me and maybe your point is that Edwards doesn't get that.
But with that said, I think the pulse of the shareholders is fairly apparent at present. Unfortunately we don't have the ability to call a special meeting and deliver the ultimatum we all (or most of us) want to deliver to management. But unless you're Steve Jobs you don't run a company by running roughshod over your shareholders.
They have to be listening. Edwards is too savvy a businessman not to be.
As I said earlier, they need to tap into the large undercurrent of marketability of young players in this country. The WJCs are a huge deal because it's all about The Next Ones. People show up to see that and they've shown up on faith of that in Edmonton for a decade. You can sell that.
It's getting tougher and tougher for the Flames to be stubborn and sell a middling product with little to no hope for the future. I'll be shockingly disappointed if the trade deadline seems to indicate that management (both hockey ops and upper) is not alive to the pulse of their "shareholders" in this regard.