REIGNITING THE FIRE
In their debut season, the Flint Firebirds were hockey’s biggest gong show. A year later, things are looking up, John Matisz writes.
Outsiders knew it. Insiders knew it. The Ontario Hockey League knew it.
Under the control of owner Rolf Nilsen, the 2015-16 Flint Firebirds were a dysfunctional mess, and the situation wasn’t going to fix itself.
“There was no manual for dealing with what had happened in Flint,” OHL commissioner David Branch says. “It was certainly something that we’ve never experienced before.”
How do you bring order to a toxic environment, to a situation so unfamiliar and so bizarre?
We’ll get to that in a bit. First, a refresher on the months-long Firebirds saga, which began after the Plymouth Whalers relocated to Flint, Mich.:
On Nov. 8 2015, Nilsen fires coaches John Gruden, Dave Karpa and Petr Jonak. Playing time for Nilsen’s son, so-so OHL defenceman Hakon Nilsen, is the main point of contention.
Straight out of a movie scene, Flint players quit en masse in response to Nilsen’s knee-jerk dismissals. The next day, Nilsen rehires the same three coaches via three-year contract extensions.
Fearing future conflicts of interest, Branch extends a firm written warning to Nilsen, who signs off on the document and agrees to end all meddling with hockey operations.
Over a span of about 90 days, Nilsen violates the terms several times. Most notably, he hires Sergei Kharin as a special adviser to ownership. Kharin moves shadily, at one point completing a trade without consulting the club’s general manager.
On Feb. 18, 2016, with Gruden and Karpa let go a second time and players refusing to practise under Kharin, now the interim coach, the OHL suspends Nilsen and Kharin until further notice.
At that point, Branch had seen enough. With trusted colleague Joe Birch at his side, the commissioner left Toronto for a four-hour drive across southern Ontario and into Michigan. The objective upon arrival: Stop the bleeding. But how does a recently relocated franchise recover from such a dramatic setback?