Pick said:
My apology. I missed the reference to Occam's Razor. But does your reference apply as you intended?
My proposal makes matters less complicated. Instead of discussing poor scouting, poor drafting, poor coaching, no leadership, lazy players, incompetence, the media, impatient fans, etc, etc, etc.....it proposes that these are symptoms and narrows the problem down to a culture where making money is more important than the product. This culture change started when Smythe Sr's influence was diminished by a group of crooks.
Yes, it applies. All of those things that you think are incidental are just symptoms of the central problem and your explanation doesn't address them. A primary interest in making money, and let's be fair that's the first time you described "the problem" as such, would lead to better development and drafting. Not worse. A fundamental interest in maximizing profit would see ownership want to have the best possible team, not the worst.
Ballard's primary interest wasn't, I don't think, to make as much money as possible. He just wanted to rule the Leafs like his own crazy fiefdom and could do that because making money owning the Leafs was more or less inevitable.
To lean on your answer one has to assume that there's some "culture" that matters more than simply top-down incompetence. Saying a well run company achieves good results and a poorly run company fails...there's no assumption there.
Pick said:
Anyway, how does Ballard explain the last ten years? And why has the center of the hockey universe been able to attract only one capable owner in the last 45+ years?
The quality of the market doesn't dictate the quality of the owner. A hockey team is a commodity and if you have a bad owner he can stick around forever. Look at the NBA. Most people would probably tell you the worst owner in the league(James Dolan) owns a team in the best market in the league(New York City). They'd probably only say that because, last year, the guy who was worst owner in the League(Donald Sterling) was forced to sell his team in the second best market in the league(Los Angeles).
Football? Jerry Jones and Dan Snyder. Baseball? Fred Wilpon and Frank McCourt. Hockey? Bill Wirtz ran the Blackhawks into the ground for 50 years in a terrible market. The Habs have had their stretches recently with terrible ownership.
You're
more likely to have bad ownership in good markets precisely because they're good markets. Any idiot can make money owning the Leafs and as such idiots are then interested. They can then make capricious, short-sighed or self-serving decisions because, unlike in other markets, they're not fighting for survival.
If you have a bad owner who wants to hang onto a team, there's nothing the market can do. That's why the Leafs record was so bad from '67 to '92. They were owned by a bitter, petty, vindictive, racist, criminal lunatic.
Pick said:
If your rebuttal rests on Stavro, it's a lame rebuttal. Didn't Stavro decide that the greatest name in hockey and the biggest acquisition this organization would ever make was too expensive?
Stavros' personal finances collapsed around him when he owned the team. The collapse of Knob Hill Farms isn't really a reflection of him and how well he was suited to own a sports franchise. He didn't sign Gretzky because he couldn't.
Eventually, though, the team's finances stabilized and they got back on the right track. With good ownership they found good management who hired good hockey people and the team got back on track. Whether or not you think it's lame, Stavros' tenure is proof positive that with good ownership, there's no real impediment to success for the franchise.
