Burke talks leadership

[Camronius]

Burke came into my workplace today and did a talk on leadership. With the flames out of the mix until draft day, I thought maybe a few would enjoy a few hockey snippets from his talk.

I'll make a caveat now that nothing extremely revolutionary or surprising was said. I captured as many notes as I could on my phone, so point form and potential misinformation will have to do. Finally keep in mind this was an event around the concept of leadership, so some of the points may be less hockey orientated than we'd all like.

-Runs organizations (flames) like a business. This is the fans money. Fan's are able to respect someone who runs the flames like a fan would run his own business. Recently made an offer to Cammalleri which he thinks is fair. He's not budging on that.

-Leaders accept change. Burke was brought in because Flames owners felt the organization needed a change. Burkes motto is to always try to hire internally first. Give the guys around a chance. Talking about coming to a new organization, he said he has very upfront conversations with the existing staff "this is my expectation, you have x amount of time to prove it". (all I could think about was Feaster)

-When he came into Calgary thought (got the feeling he still feels this way) that we only have 1 legitimate top 4 D-man.

-wants to upgrade D. Start playing alberta hockey. Made a joke about truculence.

-Leaders plan. Spending the time to plan now. It takes time to plan and they are planning. They have a good pick this year, they have to make it right, "make it count". Feels that we have good coaches in the system, both the farm and big club.

-Burke has an organizational rule. If you have the opportunity to spread the credit around, you have to do it. Sedin trades to acquire the picks was the hardest Burke has ever worked. The draft was a garbage year for drafting. "Look back at the year, aside from the twins there was nothing". Talks about when he is asked about the trade he never says "I" did it. Crawford helped and he gives him credit for assisting him in make that happen.

-Terminations are important. Not easy, but essential. Fired Keenan, Keenan basically "begged to be fired" on multiple occasions (he's making a joke/slight at Keenan here). That was likely the best day of his life when he got to fire Keenan, even then he couldn't eat that night. Part of a leaders job.

-Favorite Keenan story. They are behind 3-1. Keenan pulls the goalie. Burke doesn't see a ref's hand up, is wondering what the f is going on. Realizes the camera is going to be on him and the others in the booth in like 2 seconds, tells who he is with the scoop and they both put on a happy face for the cameras. Later goes down to talk to Keenan. Keenan says (and I don't know if I caught this part of the story right, maybe someone can clarify if they happen to know the details) trade pavel bure. I need some quality players here, trade him and I wont pull the goalie. Burke says if you pull the goalie again like that I'll kick the sh*t out of you and you are fired. It never happened again.

-Burke watched the twins in the world Jr.'s in winnipeg. They sucked. He said I hate this draft, I hate the talent in the draft, I hate this tournament. Was going to trade them but someone calmed him down. (Not really sure of the point here, but I did like hearing him say he hated the twins haha... actually I think maybe the leadership point was to trust your advisers?)

-Most important leadership trait is hard work. Why the flames saw some success this year. Leading by example is best. Feels he does this, can't ask someone to stay late if you don't do that yourself.

-Empathy is an important leadership trait. Must be able to understand personal circumstance, don't lose good people over bad personal situations. Family first. Burke brought up stajan. Thinks that maybe if he played the 5 or 6 games "who knows" maybe calgary could have been in the playoff mix. Doesn't matter though, family first, they would never do it any other way. Take/give the time that's needed.

-Do the right thing. Leaders have a code of ethics. Leaders do the right thing, not the easy thing. Burke's stresses to his management team of coaches and personnel to 'not turn a blind eye'. If a team member is being bullied etc. he wants to be able to have a chance to deal with it before it's bigger than it should be.

-personal adversity. Lost his son in a car accident. He was given opportunity to walk away, step down, give up on some responsibility. A leader marches on. Shows others it is possible to overcome these adversities.

-question is asked about important of flexibility vs. Burkes "my way or the highway". (Burke mentioned leaders need to be flexible, but also mentioned it has to be his way several times in his speech). How did the flames adjust to burkes way when he came in? Burke thought Calgary was missing certain elements of professionalism when he joined. "Your a top pick, too bad you're not my top pick. You don't get a free pass". Coaches are now free to send whoever down, whether it is a top player or a bottom player. Whenever a player is sent down there are 2 people in the room otherwise the player will discredit what was said. Always uses the philosophy of 1 positive 1 negative 1 positive. Here is what you have been doing right. This is what we don't like. This is what you need to do to stay with the club long term. Burke wants to be big and hard to play against. Thats what wins, not only skill.

-question. Is the sun setting on fighting? Burke: No. Players like fights. It's role as a tactic has been reduced. Doesn't think Seabrook hits Backes if the instigator penalty doesn't exist. Next year, first game between Chi and St. Louis, seabrook will have to fight. You will never remove head injuries from hockey. Talked about stamkos and coming back from injury, says only doctors have say about whether or not a player can return, gm's and coaches have absolutely no power. Telling a story about Grabovski, says he was hit hard into the glass, had a hard time getting up, wobbly. Coach wants to send him to the room, grabbo says "what??". Coach argues with player go to the room. Burke says there is a lot more to it. The fact was Grabovski couldn't hear anything. He was hit so hard and the glass was so loud he temporarily lost his hearing and originally his balance was affected. Grabovski says no I'm fine I just can't hear sh*t, goes out and scores game winning goal. Safest place is the bench, there are no volunteers, we play the game because of the contact.

-question. Most frustrating/rewarding part of the job. Rewarding is easy, the trades. It's what makes a lengthy career vs. a short one. Wants to beat other GM in the trade. It's the juice, the fun part of the job. Frustrating part is losing. You fix mistakes, work with the players to fix, and then you lose again because of the same mistakes, thats the frustrating part. Burke goes into a short talk about how US only lost 1-0 to team canada but the game wasn't even close.

-question about trading Stajan to calgary then becoming gm in calgary. Burke says he talked to Stajan first out of anybody when he came to calgary. Says he had to trade stajan to get phaneuf and he'd do it again. Said that word for word to stajan (haha). Likes stajan as a player, but he isn't a first line centre. Says calgary will be a great team when stajan is 2nd or 3rd centre. Talks about trading lupul to get pronger, said to lupul "I'd break my finger dialing if I had to do it again".

-question, who is going to win the cup this year? Burke is surprised LA has been dominated. Thinks LA is the hardest american building to play in (aside from X... I couldn't hear the other building he mentioned). Thought all year St Louis is the best team, thinks that series is great (dont we all). Says playoffs are a war of attrition, in anaheim's run they lost 10 d-man. Isn't surprised about columbus giving a run to pittsburgh, they are a tough playing team.

-question, new building. Need a new building to attract free agents, make sense economically. Says its important for the downtown area for a new building. Project is in the works, above his paygrade doesn't know when.

That was it. Pretty cool thing to attend at work. Unfortunately I had a few calls and had to step out, and I couldn't hear everything.

[terminator]

Thanks man that was effort

[trackercowe]

Talks about trading lupul to get pronger, said to lupul "I'd break my finger dialing if I had to do it again".

Haha

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by Camronius

-question is asked about important of flexibility vs. Burkes "my way or the highway". (Burke mentioned leaders need to be flexible, but also mentioned it has to be his way several times in his speech). How did the flames adjust to burkes way when he came in? Burke thought Calgary was missing certain elements of professionalism when he joined. "Your a top pick, too bad you're not my top pick. You don't get a free pass". Coaches are now free to send whoever down, whether it is a top player or a bottom player. Whenever a player is sent down there are 2 people in the room otherwise the player will discredit what was said. Always uses the philosophy of 1 positive 1 negative 1 positive. Here is what you have been doing right. This is what we don't like. This is what you need to do to stay with the club long term. Burke wants to be big and hard to play against. Thats what wins, not only skill..

can you expand on this?

[Bezer]

Thanks again for writing that out.. very interesting stuff.

[nik-]

Where were the draft questions?!

COME ON!

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

can you expand on this?

Baertschi slam

[Rubicant]

question is asked about important of flexibility vs. Burkes "my way or the highway". (Burke mentioned leaders need to be flexible, but also mentioned it has to be his way several times in his speech). How did the flames adjust to burkes way when he came in? Burke thought Calgary was missing certain elements of professionalism when he joined. "Your a top pick, too bad you're not my top pick. You don't get a free pass".

That sure sounds like baertschi.

[jg13]

-When he came into Calgary thought (got the feeling he still feels this way) that we only have 1 legitimate top 4 D-man.

No way he feels this way anymore. The Brodie emergence has been most impressive.

Thanks for the notes, that is a ton of effort!

[FBI]

Cue the Burke hates Brodie discussion..

[Camronius]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

can you expand on this?

no problem. Basically each train of thought was grouped together in bullet points. I just grabbed points as he talked. So the following sentence where he talked about Sven was completely related to the previous one where he was talking about professionalism. I took the professionalism comment about giving players a free pass, as not just Sven specifically but potentially others before him. It seemed he was suggesting Sven was labeled untouchable to the coach as in he shouldn't be sent down. Burke didn't elaborate more than what I've already included but I took it as a reference to Iginla and Sven. I included verbatim to what he said and tried to leave most of what I inferred out of it, so take it for what it's worth. Sven slam for sure, something else could have been there but he just kind of glossed over it, so it's really just my interpretation with the iggy suggestion.

I should also say this, in his rant here, he talked about anyone from the star players down to the guys challenging for spots could be sent down. I think that's where i started inferring he must be talking about someone else besides Sven. Who knows for sure?

[Coach]

It sounds more like a jab at Feaster for maybe forcing the coaches to keep Baertschi up.

[Gaskal]

Originally Posted by MattyC

It sounds more like a jab at Feaster for maybe forcing the coaches to keep Baertschi up.

That's how I saw it too.

Considering that one of the very first things Burke said after the Feaster firing was "Bob now has full control of the roster" it suggests that Bob wanted to send Sven down very early but was forced by Feaster to keep him on the roster. The benchings and line demotions helped somewhat but obviously not enough in Hartley's eyes - and as soon as he was given control by Burke the very first thing he did was send Sven to Abbotsford.

[kyuss275]

Gotta think he would see Brodie as top 4 now. Other than Brodie and Gio he is correct, flames need 2 more top 4 dman.

Looks like Hartely was on the same page as Burke when sending Sven down. The correct decision.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by Camronius

-When he came into Calgary thought (got the feeling he still feels this way) that we only have 1 legitimate top 4 D-man.

Dennis Wideman will likely be on the trade block if this is true.

[kyuss275]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

Dennis Wideman will likely be on the trade block if this is true.

There were rumours that he was on the trade block at the deadline. Have to think flames have to eat at least a million per year of salary to get anything worth while back for him.

[the2bears]

Great write-up, really appreciated!

[Ashasx]

Originally Posted by kyuss275

There were rumours that he was on the trade block at the deadline. Have to think flames have to eat at least a million per year of salary to get anything worth while back for him.

Then we should just use our compliance buyout.

[Badgers Nose]

I hope he does lots of these. Love the flames, need a steady dose of news.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by Ashasx

Then we should just use our compliance buyout.

If we weren't so short already on NHL quality defensemen I would agree with you. I feel like we are already going to drop Butler, and Wideman could potentially bounce back and have an adequate season. Plus, cap floor…yada yada yada.