[Boreal]

Originally Posted by browna

There’s a deep dive here into Lowe, from 2004, which Staples had just reposted yesterday.

https://edmontonjournal.com/sports/h...-of-fame-d-man

A whole lot of tripe in there and desperate attempts, even in 2004 before a lot of the other crap that Lowe did in his attempt to show how smart he was as an executive, occurred.

”There was no better one-on-one defensive defenceman in the 1980s,” Larry Wigge of The Sporting News wrote about Lowe.



Lots of cringeworthy things in this long article, but this stood out as really the basis for why Lowe thinks he knows more, and why with the multitude of top picks he has had, are all but ruined under that organization. Stuck in the 80s, because he was Slats guy only because was not getting blackout drunk like the other Oilers at the time and defaulting on loans and making bad decisions. And because Slats trusted him as team babysitter, and in a totally different era and on a powerhouse team, supposedly moulded him into a player and a person, 35 years later he thinks he should be doing the same to the Oilers young guys.


Alan Eagleson’s agency looked after Lowe’s first contract negotiation, but Lowe had almost nothing to do with his agent. He trusted Oilers coach and manager Glen Sather to develop him as a player. Lowe wishes modern players would have similar faith in management, rather than in their agents. “Once a kid is drafted, it’s in the team’s best interest to develop the guy. The teams have qualified people, but the agents get in between, because they have to justify their percentage.”


Sather taught Lowe and the other young Oilers about hockey, but also about how to navigate the outside world, how to dress, eat at fine restaurants, conduct business, give back to the community. His only rule was that team members not embarrass him, a message Lowe took to heart more than some. After one wild night celebrating a Stanley Cup win, the Cup was left behind at a local restaurant. It was Lowe who called the next morning and went to pick it up.

Winter’s skepticism exasperates Lowe. “I’m really competitive and when he’s attacking my person, my immediate response is, ‘I’m going to call this guy and I’m going to invite him to the outskirts of town, and let’s take care of this man to man. Enough of this bull####!’ ”

A moment later, Lowe adds, “But then, that would make the papers.”

Dad of the YEAR!!

Staples cognitive dissonance is on full display.

Don’t all parents describe their interactions with their kids as...

“We have a relationship.”

In 1988, Lowe had his first child, Shane, and though Lowe and the boy’s mother never married, Lowe and the boy are close. Shane goes to school in Vancouver, visiting with the Lowes in the summer. “We do have a relationship, which was disjointed and fractured at times in the early parts just because of life and immaturity,” Lowe says. “But I’m pleased to say he’s grown up well. He’s a great kid.”