Peters/Aliu Incident (UPD: no longer Flames HC)

[Vagrant]

PK never misses an opportunity to insert himself into the fray and claim that he would have taken the most attractive option retroactively. his status as a HHOF builder means a lot more to him than any attempt to insulate RF from any fallout related to these incidents. he's framing it as RF went rouge and made a unilateral decision to retain Peters.

 

[zman77]

 

[zman77]

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

For sure. Maybe he’s not sorry. Perfectly reasonable to assume that.

Anyone a little .... amused how the media here is crucifying Francis and patting RBA on the head congratulating him? Seems agenda-driven. “I call Rod a friend....”

Ok? Just ****ing report.

I'm sure there is an agenda, in part. The other part is that the decision on hiring, firing and extending Peters belonged to Francis, not RBA.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

Yeah, he'll probably get the axe...this is a league where coaches get fired left and right anyways.

...and maybe they'll find his behavior hasn't improved...making an extremely straightforward decision. Aliu has already called BS on his apology.

However, in a scenario where he has turned over a new leaf and there's evidence to prove it, I'd like to think CGY management wouldn't simply cave under public pressure.

Public pressure (or opinion) is one of the issues though. If it was Joe from the IT department of some company, public pressure wouldn't matter much. In professional sports, it certainly does. They'd open themselves up to a ton of negative press, and have to risk a bunch of players saying they don't want to play there under that coach. In your hypothetical, convincing fans and other players that "no, really, he's different now" is a tall order, no matter what evidence they have.

 

[Sens1Canes2]

I'm sure there is an agenda, in part. The other part is that the decision on hiring, firing and extending Peters belonged to Francis, not RBA.

I wonder if anyone can honestly put aside the stuff that happened in Rockford when thinking about Peters’ time here. It’s not THAT bad. It’s not “Ron Francis should be fired in Seattle” bad. By all accounts it seems like the physical “abuse” stopped as fast as it started. Unless there’s more to come.
The other stuff is just “I hated my coach.” It’s as old as time.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

I wonder if anyone can honestly put aside the stuff that happened in Rockford when thinking about Peters’ time here. It’s not THAT bad. It’s not “Ron Francis should be fired in Seattle” bad. By all accounts it seems like the physical “abuse” stopped as fast as it started. Unless there’s more to come.
The other stuff is just “I hated my coach.” It’s as old as time.

I wasn't insinuating that Francis should be fired, nor crucifying him for his handling of the kicking/punching incident or anything like that. I'm not even suggesting that Francis handled that kicking/punching situation wrongly. I have no way of knowing, but RBA seemed fine with how it was handled. If the players felt that way also (I have no way of knowing), then fine.

I was simply stating that one of the reasons Francis gets more flack than RBA is because he (Francis) was the guy in charge so it's natural for more focus to be on him. Peters is a lightning rod right now and thus people are going to form opinions and then focus on the guy making decisions.

 

[Sens1Canes2]

I wasn't insinuating that Francis should be fired, nor crucifying him for his handling of the kicking/punching incident or anything like that. I'm not even suggesting that Francis handled that kicking/punching situation wrongly. I have no way of knowing, but RBA seemed fine with how it was handled. If the players felt that way also (I have no way of knowing), then fine.

I was simply stating that one of the reasons Francis gets more flack than RBA is because he (Francis) was the guy in charge so it's natural for more focus to be on him. Peters is a lightning rod right now and thus people are going to form opinions and then focus on the guy making decisions.

Yeah I was just continuing the conversation, not trying to argue with you specifically.

 

[Negan4Coach]

Even in that theoretical scenario, I think Calgary has to fire him. The court of public opinion matters in professional sports since fans fund the league (directly via tickets and merchandise, indirectly through TV deals). A lot of fans would view this as and "old boy network, sweeping it under the rug" and Calgary would get a black eye if they don't fire him IMO. Brand image has to be considered here.

Secondly, the league would look bad both in players eyes and public eye, because it would be viewed that a guy had multiple transgressions, and wasn't punished and could just continue on his merry way.

I just can't see a scenario that Calgary and the NHL could spin to justify keeping him in place, even in your hypothetical.

Agree, I don't think there is any possibility they don't fire him, At this point they can't not fire him.

The talking heads on the Sirius/XM hockey channel are all saying the only reason for the delay is Calgary us trying to find a way to not pay the rest of his contract. I don't think they will be able to do that legally unless they uncover wrongdoing while he was coaching there, however.

 

[Finlandia WOAT]

Could they not argue that this is something Bill Peters should have disclosed at the time they interviewed him?

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

Yeah I was just continuing the conversation, not trying to argue with you specifically.

Ah, sorry. I misunderstood.

 

[Navin R Slavin]

Could they not argue that this is something Bill Peters should have disclosed at the time they interviewed him?

You can argue all kinds of things, sure.

They're gonna have to work awful hard to get out from under his contact, and they'll probably need an assist from the NHL. I'm guessing Bettman makes a pronouncement based on and the "good of the game" clause and then somehow that'll give the Flames what they need.

Bottom line: It's a certain kind of asshole that has the N word in his vocabulary in such a way that it comes out specifically when he's mad at a black dude. All the other stuff is just more asshole window dressing.

 

[The Stranger]

Public pressure (or opinion) is one of the issues though. If it was Joe from the IT department of some company, public pressure wouldn't matter much. In professional sports, it certainly does. They'd open themselves up to a ton of negative press, and have to risk a bunch of players saying they don't want to play there under that coach. In your hypothetical, convincing fans and other players that "no, really, he's different now" is a tall order, no matter what evidence they have.

It would probably take the players publicly going to bat for him...including the half-black player he's coached for parts of the past year and half...this of course in a scenario he's changed and has treated his players and staff well.

Even that might not be enough though...firing him is clearly the path of least resistance.

 

[The Stranger]

just to continue your hypothetical, what motivation to change his behavior would Peters have had at any point in his career up to now? he climbed the ladder of the coaching ranks at a perfectly acceptable speed, and got exactly where he wanted to go by following his instincts along the way.

Selfish motivation to be as successful a coach as possible? Could be he realized that using racial slurs and hitting players were counterproductive behaviors to get players to buy what he's sellin'.

 

[Navin R Slavin]

His one legit chance to save his ass was this apology, and he f***ed it up.

It's like some people have no idea what actual remorse looks like.

 

[vorbis]

His one legit chance to save his ass was this apology, and he ****ed it up.

It's like some people have no idea what actual remorse looks like.

I guess what I have to say to that is, it's much easier to express remorse when you actually feel it

 

[The Stranger]

There was a Freakonomics podcast a while back that examined different types of apologies and how effective they were.

My recollection is that for an apology to be effective, it should be "costly"...what cost is BP accepting in his apology...perhaps when he says he's accepting the reality of his actions, it's a way of saying he accepts getting fired.

They also said to avoid context...BP tried to add context to explain himself...apology experts would advise against that...sort of like Rosanne Barr saying she was on ambien...people don't want to hear excuses in an apology.

Apologizing quickly is also important...it's a weird situation trying to apologize for something you did 10 years ago...he claims he apologized to the entire locker-room right way...I suppose if he did effectively and if Aliu accepted it, he wouldn't be in this predicament today.

 

[bleedgreen]

Looking back at results, I'm not sure how much I agree with that anymore. Granted, it's admittedly complete hindsight on my part so I fully acknowledge that. Two - three years ago, I probably would have said (and maybe even did say) similar things as you wrote above....the team is heading in the right direction. I recall there were others (Wally- @Ole Gil being one of the main ones) who disagreed with that assessment back then and thought Peters was a terrible coach back then.

Kirk Muller, who by most accounts wasn't a good coach, coached the team to 36 wins and 83 points in the season he was fired. That team lacked talent as much as any Peter's team (maybe even more so) and had to use Justin Peters in net for over 20 games. I recall the team employing a "pack it in and keep shots from getting through" approach that season when Peters was in net. Khudobin had a good season, but had injury issues as did Cam Ward.

In season 1, Bill Peters takes over and promptly leads the team to the 2nd worse record in Carolina Hurricanes history with 31 wins, 71 points. The team went from scoring 201 goals the season prior, to scoring 188. The team allowed the same number of goals.
In season 2, the team had 35 wins, 86 points, so 1 less win and 3 more points than the season that got Muller fired. On top of that, they stunk it up early in the season and by December 1st, they were the 2nd worst team in the NHL by that time with an 8-12-4 record. They played better later on in the season, but at a time when it really didn't matter any more.
In season 3, the team had 36 wins and 87 points. So the same number of wins as the team under Muller, and 4 points higher. Again, they struggled early in the year and were 14th in the East on Dec 1st.

Peters no doubt instilled a more much more structured playing style that emphasized minimizing shots, moving the puck quickly in transition, and taking a lot of shots. The team got faster, played faster and made it tougher for opposing teams to get sustained offense, but the Canes didn't generate a lot of offense (scoring, not shots from everywhere) either. They were analytics darlings, but even though they gave up less shots, it seemed they gave up more high quality scoring chances.

In the end though, the team didn't improve much at all on the record that got Muller fired, even though the talent was similar (if not better in later years) to the talent Muller had. Don't get me wrong, all of those teams (even the ones under Muller) lacked talent badly. I don't think any coach could have gotten much out of that group of players, but looking back at the actual results, I don't know that I can conclude Peters did a great job either.

EDIT: that doesn't change or negate your point though. At the time, Peters was generally viewed as a good coach that was moving the team in the right direction, so him getting an extension wasn't seen as unusual.

Muller had a team that was trying to be a playoff team still. Peters got a rebuilding team that was built for the minors. The end result points wasn’t what was being talked about. Getting a mix of kids, throw away vets and minor leaguers to buy into a possession based style with aggressive defenseman was impressive and was getting league wide respect. I watched other teams feeds often and they would talk about it all game.

As mentioned by someone else earlier Liles and Hainsey were great fits for this team. Their departure along with the failed goaltending is where this fell apart. Working in Hanifin when he wasn’t close to ready, then adding Fleury to it while subtracting the two vets really hurt that system, because it never worked for Faulk.

Then add Ward and his backups. Especially the last season was pretty woof.

I think it’s reimagining the past to try to take credit away from those teams now. We were headed in the right direction that definitely had a big failure the fourth season. Under Peters we went from being a dump and chase team to a possession based one where forwards held the puck longer, and dmen charged plays in the neutral zone. In the end we needed better forwards and better goaltending to make the system work. We did a good job of blunting the others teams offense, we had the puck a ton more. In the end it failed like any other system would here because it lacked the key ingredient we have now. Money.

 

[Lempo]

They also said to avoid context...BP tried to add context to explain himself...apology experts would advise against that...sort of like Rosanne Barr saying she was on ambien...people don't want to hear excuses in an apology.

Generally I agree you shouldn't ruin a good apology with excuses, but in this case the context should be there in the apology, when and if the use of the word was in direct relation to music where the same word gets used a plenty, assumably also in the song that wascurrently playing.

You really don't want your admission to be "yes, I go around calling black people the N-word out of blue."

 

[TheBigKahuna]

His one legit chance to save his ass was this apology, and he ****ed it up.

It's like some people have no idea what actual remorse looks like.

Because hes an egotistical asshole.

I wont apologize about that.

 

[MrazeksVengeance]

People these days don’t think their insults through. They just spout whatever comes off their mind.

Later on, their excuses are just an insincere, incessant blabber.

IF YOU CHOOSE TO INSULT OWN UP TO YOUR INSULTS AND IF YOU CHOOSE TO APOLOGIZE OWN UP TO IT.

What Bill Peters wrote down are words of a wimp, who lost his position of power. That is his only regret.

 

[bleedgreen]

I’ve assumed the whole letter was lawyered up. I’ve wondered if he named Aliu or said something more specific it could be used against him? I know it seems everything has already been proven but maybe admitting in the letter is another level?

Still a crap letter.

 

[Lempo]

I’ve assumed the whole letter was lawyered up. I’ve wondered if he named Aliu or said something more specific it could be used against him? I know it seems everything has already been proven but maybe admitting in the letter is another level?

Still a crap letter.

Well... as long as you don't admit, the other guy has the problem of having to prove it if it is a matter to be settled in a court of law. I don't see there being a case for a trial of any kind there, but I may be horribly wrong in that.

 

[Ole Gil]

Was Nestrasil under Peters too? A lot of those Peters era stories maybe a little different in hindsight.

Maybe Francis too.

 

[Lempo]

Even in that theoretical scenario, I think Calgary has to fire him. The court of public opinion matters in professional sports since fans fund the league (directly via tickets and merchandise, indirectly through TV deals). A lot of fans would view this as and "old boy network, sweeping it under the rug" and Calgary would get a black eye if they don't fire him IMO. Brand image has to be considered here.

Secondly, the league would look bad both in players eyes and public eye, because it would be viewed that a guy had multiple transgressions, and wasn't punished and could just continue on his merry way.

I just can't see a scenario that Calgary and the NHL could spin to justify keeping him in place, even in your hypothetical.

One extremely important thing here is that this far there (apparently) has been zero incidents under his current contract in Calgary. The contracts he served at time have already been ended in whatever way, and the incidents may have played a part in those decisions. There is no legit cause of termination that would have happened under the Calgary contract.

The coach obviously will go when he's told to go, but if there was a union for coaches it would warrant a union case.

The public opinion in a case like this in North America of 2019 obviously distorts everything, but I'm not sure "caving in for the public opinion" is the correct way either. It might give the populus a bad incentive to actively seek out anything that could be perceived as a transgression in a singled-out person's conduct since he entered a League affiliate to demand team management or coaches removed from his current employment. How they play out Peters will be a precedent.

That being said, it's not impossible that there may be some kind of actual or implied "general NHL Code Of Conduct" to which the coaches and other personnel of any team are contractually obligated to in "Standard Coach's Contract", which might greenlight a termination.

Akin to SPC Paragraph 2:

[The Player further agrees]

(e) to conduct himself on and off the rink according to the highest standards of honesty, morality, fair play and sportsmanship, and to refrain from conduct detrimental to the best interest of the Club, the League or professional hockey generally.

It maybe hard to legally apply such thing to conduct that happened prior the contract, but unlegally you can get out of any contract by paying money.

But: is it "honest", "moral", "fair play" and "non-detrimental" to let the mob rule dictate whether you continue to fulfill or not fulfill your legal obligations as an employer to a coach whose transgressions happened before your time?

The statement on that would obviously be hard to make at the face of the public opinion, and it's clear that the ensuing dustraction it would then become to the franchise would warrant a termination.

Still, in criminal law, the principle of "Ne bis in idem" is a corner stone. You don't get punished but once for one crime, and Peters may have already had the punishment in the form of his previous employment having been ended. We did already speculate if the Hurricanes organization asked for his resignation in and as the aftermath of the previous happenstances and other team personnel making it an issue. Technically that would cover for the Canes-era transgression not warranting further action in his later employment.

If his previous employment in Chi Town wasn't continued because he was considered a dick and the players stopped playing for him partially because of the Aliu incident... that's a thing to consider.