I think all this is well stated by Salim Valji on TSN. JG made us feel the butt of a joke. For a fan base already conditioned for bad things to happen, this is not insignificant. We were spurned by Fox who went on to win a Norris. Bowed to Iginla’s wishes and did not maximize value. Khadri veto’d a trade. O’Reilly signing was a total mess. Oldest building in the league and then when it’s signed and done, that rug is pulled. 2004 - “It was in”. Won’t even detail all the questionable free agent signings that looked good on paper and then bombed. Add all this along with (lack of) playoff success since 1989, the fact that Canadian teams in general can’t win a cup, or supposedly attract non-Canadian talent, this episode caps it. The solution for many is to quit looking at American players. So, in an effort to spite ourselves, we should self-limit our access to some of the best available talent? Many say we lost him for nothing. That is completely false as we gained a massively valuable amount of cap space and in flat-tax world that, used correctly that is beyond valuable. The worry is all about the above and the ability to use the cap space to attract talent. The way JG handled it all was less than optimal. That speaks to his character, not Calgary’s. Time to move along.
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