Dinnertime meeting of the minds fired up about Burke’s exit
SCENE & HEARD: Predictably, the roundtable discussion at Francesco’s Ristorante Thursday night turned to the firing of Brian Burke. It was an eclectic group: the Honourable Wally Oppal, Q. C.; rambunctious music talent guru Bruce Allen; former Canucks’ sniper Tony Tanti; legendary blues singer Jim Byrnes; Olympic boxer- turned-promoter Manny Sobral; horse racing analyst Tom Wolski and Dr. Sport, a hear- no-evil, see- no- evil, speak- no- evil interloper.
While they agreed as a group that the Maple Leafs’ president and general manager’s “my way or the highway” theory led to his new bosses pointing him to Exit 401, there was a lot of compassion at the table for Burke.
Allen, in particular, was emotional. “There are two Brian Burkes,” he said. “He puts on a tough- guy face but deep down he’s a pretty decent guy. I’ve already contacted my pal Tom Gaglardi ( new owner of the Dallas Stars) and suggested he hire Brian as a frontman to get hockey on the sports pages down there. He could sell the game better than anyone I know in a market that needs help.”
The articulate Oppal had other ideas.
“I, too, believe Brian is an intense individual who takes himself too seriously at times. But his heart is in the right place. I can see him playing a role for U. S. Hockey in the future, maybe along the lines of Bob Nicholson with Hockey Canada.”
Burke told Damien Cox of the Toronto Star on Friday that he is under contract for the rest of this season and next and he fully intends to contribute as a consultant. The Leafs had said at his firing that Burke would remain as a “senior adviser.”
That’s the same title Pat Quinn inherited when the Edmonton Oilers had no more use for him. Like David Shoalts of The Globe wrote: “It’s the corporate equivalent of being sent to Baffin Island on a fact- finding mission.”
As a “senior adviser” with the Oilers, Quinn wasn’t even invited to the NHL draft in Las Vegas the year he was dusted. Nobody in the organization ever asked for his advice. And the suspicion is the same will happen to Burke, now on the outside looking in.
The best advice Burke could offer to his longtime friend and successor Dave Nonis would be to listen a lot and speak when spoken to when the new ninemember board of directors with Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment Ltd. are in session.
As one NHL general manager put it to me: “These are threepiece suit executives who work on Bay Street and subscribe to a code of conduct. They are interested only in the bottom line. Gone are the days of being enamoured by a self- serving, garrulous hockey personality.”
The old style caught up to Burke. And his friends at Francesco Alongi’s Thursday night were feeling his pain.