Anybody else concerned that we're hearing from Moloney and not the most talkative GM in the league?
Yikes. Overall a completely frustrating and tone deaf interview. And Maloney doing some great fan-splaining here
"What the fans don't get is that we have a team next year that we have to put on the ice, and what happens if some of these younger players aren't quite ready? And then you're, you know, you're the 32nd place team next year.”
The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to Jiggy_12 For This Useful Post:
Yikes. Overall a completely frustrating and tone deaf interview. And Maloney doing some great fan-splaining here
"What the fans don't get is that we have a team next year that we have to put on the ice, and what happens if some of these younger players aren't quite ready? And then you're, you know, you're the 32nd place team next year.”
That's the worst part. Everything Boomer said the other say is right. This franchises brain trust is treating it's fanbase as idiotic children. That's an insult. We understand that a rebuild might result in a few years of bottom feeder teams. The results are often worth the pain. It's a risk worth taking.
It might be time to re-evaluate my level of interest/engagement in your team going forward Murray. If you're going to treat me like this, I can spend my hard earned money elsewhere. We get effed over in every other aspect of life, I don't need the Flames bending me over too. It's obvious (if it wasn't already) that this franchise cares very little for it's fans.
__________________
Emotionally exhausted and morally bankrupt
The Following User Says Thank You to BigT112 For This Useful Post:
This may be off topic. Used to listen all the time and the show was all over my algorithm. But them taking money for the Nashville trip recently really irked me. With the way Trump treating the Canadian citizens. It was not a good look. Decided the show was not for me.
Yikes. Overall a completely frustrating and tone deaf interview. And Maloney doing some great fan-splaining here
"What the fans don't get is that we have a team next year that we have to put on the ice, and what happens if some of these younger players aren't quite ready? And then you're, you know, you're the 32nd place team next year.”
Hey Don. That’s what many fans expect.
The Following User Says Thank You to howard_the_duck For This Useful Post:
I've said it before. There's an awful lot of management on the Flames payroll for a team sitting dead last and looking like it will be there again next year.
Being dead last and building from the draft doesn't sound like an overly complicated plan requiring 5 GMs.
And really, what track record of building a successful team does Maloney have?
__________________
MOD EDIT: NO!!!
The Following User Says Thank You to Two Fivenagame For This Useful Post:
Yikes. Overall a completely frustrating and tone deaf interview. And Maloney doing some great fan-splaining here
"What the fans don't get is that we have a team next year that we have to put on the ice, and what happens if some of these younger players aren't quite ready? And then you're, you know, you're the 32nd place team next year.”
He’s right though.
I mean, can you imagine if we bottomed out to try a rebuild, and ended up in 32ND place?? It would be a disaster.
Hold on, someone is handing me a piece of paper…
__________________
I am a lunatic whose world revolves around hockey and Oilers hate.
The Following User Says Thank You to BACKCHECK!!! For This Useful Post:
“Imagine if we ended up in 32nd overall again next year” and we added another top 5 potential star player to Wolf, McKenna, Parekh and Bruz. Oh no what a cruel world that would be. Good thing we have the geniuses behind the Coyotes advising our team. Shut up Maloney, why do we need a perennial loser like that around the team.
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Psytic For This Useful Post:
Yeah I'm a little puzzled by that too, particularly when coupled with the fact Conroy doesn't have an extension yet.
Maybe this guy thinks he's showing great leadership by getting out there.
But it's a complete mis-read of the situation.
Is it possible Flames leadership are quite pleased with the work Conroy has been doing on this rebuild, but still felt a need to get the message out that the organization wasn't checked out yet this season. They could give this assignment to Conroy, to have him publicly contradict his own work while attempting to carry the company slogan.
Or you could let Conroy to continue to do his job, and have our rarely seen or heard from President of Hockey Operations fall on his sword in public.
Seems possible?
Last edited by Finger Cookin; 11-21-2025 at 08:07 PM.
I was 100% fine with his interview between periods. 100% fine wasn't exactly accurate, but i felt it was vastly overblown with the reaction. I think he shouldn't have said squat. For the record, I think the Flames should just went about their business without saying much at all until whatever trades they end up completing this year are actually competed. Then immediately come out and do a "State of the Union" address of some sort. No need for a cringey letter apologizing to fans, and promising things that everyone knows will be hard to deliver. Just a short state of the union that the Flames are just doing a youth movement, and sometimes when you do a youth movement, you have a season like this. It is honest, it is respectful, and it doesn't piss anyone off (will, there will always be someone pissed off no matter what, but the majority of fans will be fine.
So yeah, I was 'fine' with what Maloney brought up - a bit cringey, but otherwise fine.
Then this Francis piece gets published? Yeah - I did a 180.
Why in the world is this a good idea to come out and double-down on the comments that got people angry? I don't get it.
For instance:
Quote:
Sportsnet: What is your assessment of the first quarter?
Don Maloney: It's been poor, and unexpected.
Excuse me? Unexpected? Looking at the roster, most people expected to finish at the bottom of the standings. All the trades made were mostly for futures - picks that were used to select prospects at the draft, not for 'win now' players. There is a lot of unused cap space - the 5th most cap space, and that doesn't include the $1.875 million retained on Markstrom.
So the natural question I would ask is:
Are you incompetent, or do you think us fans are a bunch of morons and that you can just bull#### us like this?
Am I being too unreasonable? Is there another way to take this?
He also says this:
Quote:
SN: Is the narrative accurate that the directive from ownership is that there's not going to be a reset or a rebuild?
DM: No, I don't think that's accurate. We have a collective group here with Dave Nonis, Craig, myself, Brad Pascall, Peter Hanlon and we discuss how we move forward. We all want to win a Cup. Yet we, there's a dynamic in Canada, you have 82 games, you want to sell tickets and get people to come to your games. It all kind of works together. No one has an appetite to just burn it to the studs, take it all down. There's examples out there right now where you're talking potentially decades it can take to rebuild. The draft is such an inexact thing. If you could be guaranteed that you could get a superstar or franchise-level player every year I'm sure ownership of any team would say, ‘okay, yeah, we'll suffer for two or three years.’ But we just don't think that's the way for us. We prefer a Dallas model, where they got Miro Heiskanen at three, but also got good players in the 20s, in the 30s. We’ve got to be better in our drafting and developing, versus saying, 'let's just lose easy for everybody.' We don't want that culture as part of this organization.
So you need to sell tickets.. by lying to the fan base about the expectations? Again, is this incompetence, or are the Flames trying to do a 'bait-and-switch' here? It sounds like the Flames misrepresenting something here. It doesn't smell good. I feel it is calling into question the fan base's intelligence, no? This really stinks. I can't quite put my finger on this, but this makes me angry here. Flames are still saving a lot of cap space here. They are also getting a new mostly publicly funded building here. You still trying to deceive the general public into buying tickets assuming this team is going to be successful? Sigh.
A Dallas model. Ok. Sure, there's no doubt that Dallas has had a LOT more success in the last three consecutive seasons than the Flames have had since '04. That's three consecutive conference finals appearances. However, the question needs to be asked again - is the Dallas "Model" really the way to go here? Why not the Colorado model that resulted in a cup? Dallas hasn't won squat, but they did win a lottery. The Dallas Model has always sounded overly optimistic to me, and similar to "What we've always done in Calgary" - at least to a point, right?
Quote:
SN: It seems like everyone would agree you're missing the difference makers. How can you get them if you don't draft one, two or three in the draft?
DM: Well, Matthew Tkachuk was a pretty big difference-maker and he was drafted sixth. There's good players at the top of the draft. You don't have to be at the very bottom to get difference makers. Your odds are probably better to be at the very bottom, as we all know, but for us, it's one thing to have this discussion in March and April. It's another to be talking in October, November. For a team like us who came in with certain expectations, we're not going to just knee-jerk it because we've had a bad month. We're going to continue to do what we're doing, develop and draft our players the way we feel is the correct way to do it. We’ll see how the next few months go, but again, it's not going to be a knee-jerk reaction to having just a very disappointing 20 games.
So, where the Flames are in at the moment isn't the plan? These 20 games have been very disappointing? Or were they expected when you look at the roster, the cap space, and the plethora of futures that are accumulated? There has been no impetus on avoiding the bottom of the standings here, so how can you call this a "very disappointing 20 games."?? Heck, i would be a little perturbed if I am a player here. Like: "Where the F is the help here?" As a fan - am I supposed to be enter this season expecting the Flames to do well? Am I not supposed to look at the roster construction and assume things aren't going to go well, and now suddenly find myself very disappointed as I didn't expect this?
Quote:
SN: When you say long-term, do you have a goal in mind in terms of when you expect this team to be competitive?
DM: In an ideal world. We're hoping to have a little pop in momentum going into the new building. But again, it's just how these young players evolve. If we had this conversation in summertime, we were probably feeling a little bit better about things. We've got some prospects here and some young players, but when you're sitting where we're sitting in the standings, it looks a little cloudy.
Again, insinuating that this is somehow an 'unexpected setback' that requires reevaluation? Some on... stop with the bull####. The Flames didn't have to say squat, but for Maloney to come out and say what he said leaves room for only two explanations:
1) The Flames are an incompetent mess thinking that this season was supposed to be much more successful than this
2) The Flames think us fans are morons, and that they can just lie like this.
This is rather disappointing. Not because of where the Flames are at, but because the President of the Calgary Flames just went public bull####ting the fan base here. If it isn't bull####ting, then it is sheer incompetence. Is there a third angle I am missing? I think it makes it so much worse by stating: "We still need to sell tickets." Sell tickets by trying to lie to the fan base about expectations? I don't think that's right. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth, actually.
If you have read any of my posts over the last few days, i have had the complete opposite viewpoint until now. This interview just left a bad taste somehow. It was hard to stomach. Not because I disagree with the direction of the team, or this and that. It just really felt like the President of the Flames simply bull####ting the fan base, while citing a need to sell tickets in that interview. It was just unnecessary.
All I could think of was this:
Keep these guy away from the microphone. I feel like not spending another dollar on the Flames this season and next simply because I feel like Maloney is trying to cheat me somehow. Sure, call it an overreaction, but that's how that interview sat with me. Should have just sad nothing.
The Following 10 Users Say Thank You to Calgary4LIfe For This Useful Post:
Wouldn’t getting a Bedard/Celebrini-level player through the draft (or several of them) help put fans in the seats? I don’t know about the rest of you but I would be more excited to see that type of player on a team finishing bottom 5 for a few years than watching the same 30-35 year olds eek out season after season finishing 3-5 points out of a playoff spot.
The Following User Says Thank You to stemit14 For This Useful Post:
