Making it Worse

To start you off, a little reading music, the Oilers theme song:

That’s better.  Now….HERE COME THE OILERS!

By the way, maybe the most embarrassing slogan a team has ever come up with.  Nothing says corny quite like that does.  Anyway, so the owner and his kid got together and decided to trot someone out to take the bullets for the team.  Daryl can’t do it, because that would mean he manned up and that’s not Daryl’s way.  Can’t send Kevin Lowe, he’s too close of a friend and has 6 rings so OBVIOUSLY he has nothing to do with any of this.  So he sent out the GM.  And the GM was quick to point out accountability and how everyone had it.  UNFORTUNATELY for everyone with the Oilers, it’s not hard to look up the meaning of words these days….

“:  the quality or state of being accountable; especially :  an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or toaccount for one’s actions <public officials lackingaccountability>”

Ohhhhh damn.  See, I had thought it meant “I have 6 rings so f*** all of you”.  I was WAY off!

It’s too bad for Bono and 6 rings that people can easily see through absolute BS.  MacTavish was pointing fingers at everyone with the exception of himself or his bosses, Dallas Eakins has pointed the finger at Ralph Krueger in the past, Bob Stauffer goes on Oilers Now and points the fingers at development and anyone else who aren’t the actual people to blame, Fred Chabot gets fired because he was an easy guy to fire, and then all these people wonder why their young stars have no accountability.  SERIOUSLY!?

In fact with Bob, it’s become quite clear that he is not to say anything negative about Lowe ever.  A guy texted into his show a month or so ago and I can’t remember what exactly was said but basically the guy asked what has Lowe ever done right since becoming President of Hockey Op’s?  Knowing full well what the guy meant (talking about the Oilers), Stauffer responded with, and I’m paraphrasing “Well, he hired Bob Green who put together a Memorial Cup champion with the Oil Kings, that was a pretty good move”.

I don’t blame Stauff.  I did my practicum working on “Total Sports” in 2004.  Bob was and always has been a great guy to me.  I’m not intending to trash him.  But I think he has very clear orders as to what he can and cannot be critical of on the air and it does seem like Kevin Lowe is off limits.  Which wouldn’t surprise me.  In fact, it would fall right in line with everything else Bono and 6 rings do.

But back to accountability.  It was obvious to me that MacTavish was attempting to drill that into fans heads yesterday in hopes of it kicking in that they are accountable.  But when you point the finger at Steve Tambellini and talk about how this isn’t on you because you’ve only been on the job 20 months….come on!!

And MacTavish was the one guy in all this who I was defending.  I thought he had done a decent job and has simply been a product of a horrible work environment where the owner wants to be Bono and hang out with his childhood hero’s.  But that press conference made it pretty clear that he is part of the problem too.

I for one am glad they had the presser though, because really it blew up in their face.  The national media jumped all over them today and it really shone a light on what the real problem is with the Oilers.  Everyone in Northern Alberta knew it, but now everyone seems to have figured it out.

Too late to fire anyone now.  Make sure now you get 30th, THEN clean house.  If Bono is anything of a smart man he will tell Bob Nicholson to do whatever he needs to do, and Nicholson will clean house.  6 rings, Colin Cowherd, accountable Mac, the feathered coach, the pro scouts, the amateur scouts, everyone will be gone and start from scratch.  The funny thing is, if they do that, and bring in the right people, they would likely be a playoff team next season.

But can Bono do that?  Can he let his son tell uncle Bob that he is to clean house and fire all of Bono’s best buddies?  Tune in next week for another riveting addition of “Oil My Children”

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