Letting go PR man not a good PR move
Lions have few employees with longtime ties to the community — and now they have one fewer
In honour of the Canucks’ Flying V sweaters, here’s something else that might come back in style one day, the Monday morning musings and meditations on the world of sports:
The B.C. Lions are owned by David Braley, who lives more than 4,000 kilometres away in Burlington, Ont.
The Lions’ president is Rick LeLacheur, a native of Edmonton and former president of the Eskimos. The general manager, Ed Hervey, is a former Eskimos GM and storied player for that franchise.
The new head coach, Rick Campbell, started his coaching career in Edmonton 20 years ago and went on to work with four CFL teams. This is his first stop with the Leos. And your point?
This past week, the Lions let go Jamie Cartmell, their longtime PR man, as part of a “restructuring.” They maintain this wasn’t a cost-cutting measure, although, invariably, it’s always about money.
Whatever the reason, here’s the larger point.
Cartmell was a Lion. He was a fierce promoter and defender of the brand. There were a lot of years when that was a difficult, thankless job. But he was always there, trying to put the Leos in the best possible light.
Now, look around the organization and try to find people who identify as Lions.
There’s director of football operations Neil McEvoy. There’s director of Canadian scouting Geroy Simon, although if Hervey is trying to raise Simon’s profile within football operations, he’s doing a good job of hiding it. There’s director of community partnerships Jamie Taras, and Travis Lulay, who works on the corporate side of things.
But in terms of visibility, in terms of key decision-makers, there aren’t a lot of Lions lifers, which may be one of the reasons this franchise has had trouble connecting to its fans base since the 2011 Grey Cup run.
Actually, the Lions have looked lost and directionless since Bob Ackles died in 2008. Wally Buono held things together on the strength of his personality, but he’s gone, and now they have LeLacheur, an Edmontonian, trying to establish relationships in the Lower Mainland; they have Hervey, an enigmatic sort who speaks to the media only when the spirit moves him; and they have an owner who, theoretically, has been trying to sell the team since 2005 and doesn’t look to be any closer to moving his asset.
In the meantime, there’s a local group that has been continually frustrated by Braley over the years. Maybe they aren’t the answer. But the existing arrangement isn’t working, and now the Lions have let go a trusted and loyal employee in Cartmell who built bridges and connected with the team’s stakeholders.
That’s a tone-deaf message to send at any time, let alone three weeks before Christmas, but I can’t say I’m surprised.
n In the past two seasons, the Vancouver Canucks have produced the Calder Trophy winner in Elias Pettersson and the runner-up in Brock Boeser. This year, Quinn Hughes figures to be one of three rookie-of-the-year finalists, provided he stays healthy.
That’s an impressive run. But to understand its larger significance, we invite you to look at the Calder winners and finalists over the last 20 years. The odd one didn’t develop into an impact player — Mike York, Trent Hunter, Andrew Raycroft. But the overwhelming majority either became front-line players or are in the process of becoming front-line players.
Granted, this exercise is subjective, but, depending on you’re definition of an impact player, a look over the last 20 years reveals some 50 of the 60 Calder finalists went on to become front-liners. The list is on the NHL’s website.
Keep that in mind when you think about the Canucks’ future.
n It seems the Seahawks and the 49ers have been on a collision course since Week 3 of the NFL season and now top seed in the NFC figures to come down to the Dec. 29 showdown at Century Link.
You love the Seahawks at home, but the 49ers’ Jimmy Garoppolo looked like a championship-calibre quarterback Sunday against New Orleans. I don’t know if that changes the equation. I do know the football world will stop in three weeks to find out.
n And finally, in his time as the NHL’s chief disciplinarian, Colin Campbell had more than one conversation with Marc Crawford.
“I had issues with Crow on this job,” said Campbell, the league’s director of hockey operations. “I used to tell him, ‘You’ve got to tone it down, Crow. You can’t do this. You can’t do that.’”
But Campbell, who’s been in the game longer than the red line, has a problem with judging coaches’ actions from 20, 30 years ago through the lens of 2019.
Bill Peters is in a different category, but Campbell wonders aloud why Crawford is being investigated for events that happened more than a decade ago when they weren’t as outrageous as they seem to be in 2019.
“I’m not comfortable with that,” Campbell said. “I don’t think it’s right they turn the clock black and start judging people by today’s standards. It’s not right today. I get that. But people are piling on coaches.”
This subject has become a hot-button issue for the NHL. Commissioner Gary Bettman is expected to address the topic at the board of governors meetings today and Tuesday with the stated goal of improving hockey’s culture.
That’s fine and maybe this conversation was overdue. But the NHL would be advised to keep it moving forward. If they start examining everything coaches did in the past, Crawford will hardly be the only one under investigation.