adding the hockey ops VP (or whatever the role is called) seems like a viable approach to a management structure where traditionally your GM (strictly a hockey guy) is making hockey decisions, but then having to justify that to management/ownership (non-hockey folks) that likely need to see things in a more business-case model (ie. ROI, etc).
Putting a buffer in between, that has some level of experience on both sides of the coin, can speak both languages (to hockey/non-hockey manager types) seems reasonable.
As far as "meddling/puppet" stuff goes... i think you miss the point of the structure if you fear this. There is NO WAY any NHL franchise blindly gives a GM the keys to do anything he pleases. Big decisions, where big pay-cheques are being moved in/out, always have to have approval/concensus from the higher ups. That is how any business works. The key difference now is that the concensus is not just the GM and Ken King/edwards (non-hockey guy), but the GM reports to an experienced NHL exec, so the knowledge base used when making hockey decisions should be that much better.
having more hockey guys at the table to make a decision = Good thing
having hockey decisions made by a combination of hockey and non-hockey guys = not so good thing, and can be bad when the non-hockey guy with $ on the table has a more weighted vote than the hockey guys at the table.
|