Another shot at Peddie
PHILADELPHIA — There are two schools of thought on how Pat Quinn chose to make his only public statement so far about his dismissal by the Toronto Maple Leafs.
On one hand, it would have been nice for Quinn to call a press conference and provide his side of the story for the Leaf fans who helped make him the highest-paid coach in the National Hockey League.
On the other, Quinn is a stubborn man to the point of arrogance sometimes, so if he did not want to bare his soul in public and lay claim to the moral high ground, a statement released through his agent was better than silence.
It left all of us picking through the entrails looking for hidden meanings in the bland offering by Quinn.
Only one thing came through loud and clear, and your blogger is sorry to say he missed it when filing a short report on the statement on Thursday. A severe brain cramp made me overlook the fact Quinn omitted the name of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment president Richard Peddie from the list of people he thanked for helping him during his eight-year tenure with the team.
Peddie, thanks to his inability to keep his wisdom to himself when it comes to running the Leafs and their basketball siblings, the Toronto Raptors, is the whipping boy these days.
The basketball fans blame him, and rightly so, for the mess the Raptors are in and the Leaf fans, judging by callers to the talk-radio shows and e-mails to this space, blame him equally with Leafs general manager John Ferguson for the hockey team's woes.
Just about everyone who has left the Leafs in recent years has few kid words for Peddie. Bill Watters, who was forced out as Leafs assistant GM when Quinn was made give up his GM's post and cut back to being just the coach, loudly blamed Peddie for his corporate knifing.
From his perch in talk radio and on television panels, Watters holds Peddie and MLSE chairman Larry Tanenbaum equally responsible for the situation at the Air Canada Centre.
While Quinn thanked people that he clashed bitterly with over the years — Ferguson and former president Ken Dryden the most notable — the Peddie omission was significant. It was Peddie who is suspected of pulling the rug from under Quinn's double portfolio as GM and head coach. It was Peddie who was able to slide his choice for GM, Ferguson, up the middle when Quinn and Dryden were opposed to the other's candidates.
Neither Tanenbaum nor Peddie enjoy a great deal of influence around the NHL, either. While the Leafs are by far the wealthiest franchise in the league, Tanenbaum and Peddie do not get many votes as executives of the year.
Perhaps Quinn, who misses little of what is said on the airwaves and written in the newspapers, did not feel the need to tell his side of the story, given the opprobrium showered upon Tanenbaum and Peddie.
After all, Quinn's pal Bobby Clarke, the GM of the Philadelphia Flyers, had lots to say on his behalf the other day when the Toronto Sun came calling.
"Look at the tradition he had built there, and this is how he gets treated?" Clarke told The Sun. "There has got to be some kind of loyalty out there.
"You look at what (bleeping) happened there and you have to wonder: Who would want to work in Toronto? What's going to happen next year? Are they going to fire the new coach if he doesn't make the playoffs?"
Clarke made it clear he was firing not so much at Ferguson but at Ferguson's bosses, which means Tanenbaum and Peddie.
Now, Clarke may have some skeletons in his own closet but it's hard to argue with him on this one.
To comment, click here, or email me at dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Posted Friday, April 28 at 3:41 p.m.
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