Ryan Nugent-Hopkins has been playing with a shoulder injury

[Rutuu]

Originally Posted by New Era

I see your point, but they did the guy a solid by hiring his wife into a good administrator's job. They didn't have to do that. I know some universities that have a no spouse or family hiring policy just so these kind of conflicts are prevented. Seems they went the extra mile for the guy. I understand your point of being able to negotiate extended benefits, but that is up to the employer and many times restricted by job classification. As the talent, you might be able to negotiate extended benefits. As the overhead, it's unlikely. I also can understand how the school would think that it would be problematic for this guy to run his program and team from 7 times zones away. University research groups and administration have a hard enough time functioning in the same room let alone on different continents. I guess anything is possible, but I think that wouldn't work and would cause more problems for the program and university than it was worth.

Bah, doesn't really matter. I don't think you can hang this on Edmonton or be used as an example to run the Oilers down. Trust me, I love to run Edmonton and the Oilers down, but this isn't an example to use. There are better targets just in Rexall Place!

I use that article as an example of how multiple organizations in the city of Edmonton have no idea how to run a world class project or lure world class people.

Personally I don't live in Edmonton or Calgary, but my international view of Edmonton is that they don't know how to do anything right, or get the right people for the job...is that management or is it systemmatic to the area I don't know, but they sure do seem to have a lot of these types of problems.

[Rutuu]

Originally Posted by theg69

Now that is an extremely ignorant comment. Doctors and any other profession choose their home for a variety of reasons. Although I am a fan of the Flames and not of the Oilers given I grew up in Calgary, I still live in Edmonton, mostly because their medical facilities and training programs are still better than those in Calgary.

http://oncampus.macleans.ca/educatio...ical-doctoral/

The U of A medical school is always ranked above the University of Calgary and quite specifically their Sports Medicine is one of the best residency training programs in Canada. They also have some of the best orthopedic surgeons in the country here as well.

Half my medical school class was from Calgary as well, and my sister CHOSE to go to Edmonton over Calgary (even though she got into both medical schools).

To make a baseless comment like that is garbage and quite frankly offensive. Even in the case of Ryan Nugent Hopkins, we obviously do not know the full story here and although I like to laugh at the Oilers like any other Flames fan, to drag their doctors through the mud is absolutely abhorable. And yes, I do know some of the doctors who work with the Oilers and the Eskimos.

I do agree that although RNH is quite skilled, he is still too weak and undersized to be an impact player yet in the NHL and until he gains more strength, he will likely be injury prone.

I see this as anyone from Edmonton's major problem...you assume I live in Calgary and use that as the basis of your comparison. Not every hurdle in life should be to "beat Calgary", competition for top talent is world wide.

Sorry I don't live there and while I've got nothing against the U of A if you exist in a system where doctors can't make a $1,000,000/yr+ and there is a system next door where they can I doubt very much you're attracting all of the top talent no matter what enrollment brochures tell us.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by New Era

I see your point, but they did the guy a solid by hiring his wife into a good administrator's job. They didn't have to do that. I know some universities that have a no spouse or family hiring policy just so these kind of conflicts are prevented. Seems they went the extra mile for the guy. I understand your point of being able to negotiate extended benefits, but that is up to the employer and many times restricted by job classification. As the talent, you might be able to negotiate extended benefits. As the overhead, it's unlikely. I also can understand how the school would think that it would be problematic for this guy to run his program and team from 7 times zones away. University research groups and administration have a hard enough time functioning in the same room let alone on different continents. I guess anything is possible, but I think that wouldn't work and would cause more problems for the program and university than it was worth.

Bah, doesn't really matter. I don't think you can hang this on Edmonton or be used as an example to run the Oilers down. Trust me, I love to run Edmonton and the Oilers down, but this isn't an example to use. There are better targets just in Rexall Place!

I know it has nothing to do with the Oilers, and I dont want to come across like I'm ragging on you, but this is just how it works.

If you want someone who is awesome at what they do to come and do it for you you have to do the work necessary to make them want to come.

When a team trades for a player they dont make him process his own immigration, they take care of that for him.

This guy was a professor at Oxford, his wife worked in administration at Oxford. If they want him to leave his kids and parents and move across the ocean to work in Edmonton they have to find work for his wife. It was bad enough they left their kids, but the guy isnt going to accept a 7-year project and have to leave his wife and kids behind.

So she needs a job, otherwise she wont be approved through immigration.

Quibbling over minuscule crap like 11 unpaid vacation days leading to his wife deciding not to join him is massively stupid.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Locke

I know it has nothing to do with the Oilers, and I dont want to come across like I'm ragging on you, but this is just how it works.

If you want someone who is awesome at what they do to come and do it for you you have to do the work necessary to make them want to come.

When a team trades for a player they dont make him process his own immigration, they take care of that for him.

This guy was a professor at Oxford, his wife worked in administration at Oxford. If they want him to leave his kids and parents and move across the ocean to work in Edmonton they have to find work for his wife. It was bad enough they left their kids, but the guy isnt going to accept a 7-year project and have to leave his wife and kids behind.

So she needs a job, otherwise she wont be approved through immigration.

Quibbling over minuscule crap like 11 unpaid vacation days leading to his wife deciding not to join him is massively stupid.

I'm pretty certain that's not the way it is. I can't speak directly for the University of Alberta, but I can tell you how it is at some other educational institutions in North America. You rarely see crazy packages put together for faculty or researchers. Because much of the research end of things is grant funded there is no room for these perk packages in the budget. As well, these positions are brought on with very specific guidelines that the individual understands coming in. It is all spelled out and there are usually no surprises. That's how these grants are written. This is why you see staff quickly dispatched should the funding be pulled or lost because of changes in grant allocation. The university has no flexibility in this regard. This is not the private sector and the flexibility that exists there does not exist in the public sector. This is my experience working on both sides of the private/public sector divide.

Again, I hardly see how this is anything to do with the behaviors of Edmonton in general or of the Oilers. It's just a hire that went sideways because of complex nature of the indivual's family and the restrictive nature of the industry he worked in.

[Bertuzzied]

what kinda loser has a hyphenated name? lame ass

[Bandwagon In Flames]

Originally Posted by Bertuzzied

what kinda loser has a hyphenated name? lame ass

I never understood hyphenated last names. What if he marries a girl with a hyphenated last name? Should it become 'Nugent-Hopkins-Louise-Parker'? Ryan obviously has a lame dad with no backbone and an overly feminist mom who wears the pants in the family.

Loser name = Loser player <-- it's proven I swear.

[Buff]

Originally Posted by Bandwagon In Flames

I never understood hyphenated last names. What if he marries a girl with a hyphenated last name? Should it become 'Nugent-Hopkins-Louise-Parker'? Ryan obviously has a lame dad with no backbone and an overly feminist mom who wears the pants in the family.

Loser name = Loser player <-- it's proven I swear.

I just hope they don't name their kid Jean-Luc Nugent-Hopkins-Louise-Parker.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Buff

I just hope they don't name their kid Jean-Luc Nugent-Hopkins-Louise-Parker.

I do.

And when it happens, I'm buying a jersey-embroidering company off of 118th and Groat and I can retire.....

[Bertuzzied]

Originally Posted by Locke

I do.

And when it happens, I'm buying a jersey-embroidering company off of 118th and Groat and I can retire.....

yeah..... like who would be caught dead with that jersey? they may sell 18 of them? hahha

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher

Yeah. Two weeks vacation is pretty ridiculous for anyone with experience especially someone leaving her kids back in Europe. If you're going to go to lengths to recruit all star scientists to EDM and it's crap weather i dont think the wife asking for 11 days unpaid vacation should be a deal breaker for the University. I've asked for the same from a salaried job and was granted it and i didnt even have kids back in Europe. And then the guy offers to run the program on the cheap from England and the University isn't interested.

Sounds like a real petty squabble from the University's end. Doesn't surprise me as big administrations often are uncompromising even on matters that shouldn't be huge deals.

OT, but ignorant statement. 2 weeks isn´t unexpected. My girlfriend is a researcher (post-doc) at Stanford, and gets 5 vacation days a year. (luckly, her PI, aka advisor, is flexable and lets her take more then 5 vacation days a year) Acadamia has a ton of beaurocracy - and thats a private school.