| Hockey Odds – Why the fuss over Tallon? |
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| Written by Administrator |
| Friday, 17 July 2009 14:13 |
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You know the hockey odds news has slowed significantly when the top story of the week is about a demotion – not a firing, a demotion. Hockey odds pundits, other GMs and, reportedly, players are up in arms over the Chicago Blackhawks’ demotion of Dale Tallon to Senior Adviser of hockey operations (isn’t that Scotty Bowman’s position?), or some mumbo-jumbo position like that. Taking over GM duties is Stan Bowman, son of Scotty. No surprise there. But why the uproar over Tallon’s dismissal? It’s not like they fired him. He still gets a (probably) six-figure job with the Hawks. Yeah, he helped build them into the hockey odds contender they are today, but he also narrowly escaped one of the biggest GM blunders in NHL history when he filed his restricted free-agent signings too late. It’s an honest mistake but still one that can’t get totally swept under the rug. Most importantly, Tallon himself seems fine with the move. He said he’s not offended at all and seems happy to stay with the team. So why are other people fighting his battles for him? Like Hawks management said and, like Tallon said, he’s 22 years older than Stan Bowman. Maybe he was becoming stressed or struggling to keep up with the new salary cap rules. Who knows? Either way, Tallon seems fine, so we really should apply our hockey odds debate energy elsewhere. |