Quote:
Originally Posted by The Cobra
To me, the only really bad thing about the Maloney interviews is why the Flames felt the need to have them. Just stay quiet, and no one would be debating whether what he was saying was the organizational direction or not.
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So according to Pat Steinberg this is what happened. Eric Francis reached out to the Flames and asked if Maloney would do this interview at the quarter mark of the season, and could give some insight into what the plan is for the Flames, which they agreed. Around the same time Sportsnet asked if Conroy could give an on air interview as we haven't heard from him really this year. The Flames said since Maloney is already doing the other interview he can just do both, and Maloney likes doing interviews.
Then the first interview on Thursday went really poorly compared to what the media expected. They really were trying to just make people feel better about the rest of the season with the poor start, and give them hope. But there was a lot of backlash and it had the complete opposite effect after Maloney went on air with his answers.
Eric Francis had already completed the interview that was released the last few days prior to this on air interview. And he reached out to the Flames and offered to just pull the interview and have them do another interview at a later time, to cool the temperature in the fan base and to see if they wanted to send a diffent message instead. But the Flames said no, the interview they gave is exactly what the message is and they want that to be released.
That is basically the summary of it. So the Flames upper management or whoever is in charge of this was completely fine with this going out, and did not think it would anger the fans.
Steinberg also said on a good note, that from everything he has heard from his sources Craig is likely to get extended. And he also said even if this is the message now he has heard there has been a lot of internal debates behind the scenes recently. So he said while a retool is the plan today and the interview is likely the real plan today, at least behind the scenes things could change in the next few months and they could go to a plan B.