Rumor: Flames Hiring New President of Hockey Operations

 

 

Bruce Dowbiggen isn’t very popular in many Flames fan circles, but he’s not a guy who makes a habit of trading unfounded rumors, so there could be something to this.

The popular assertion right now is that the target is Brendan Shanahan. I don’t know what tools the current head of NHL discipline would bring to such a role, but I am certainly in favor of any move that gets Ken King a few steps away from the actual hockey portion of the business. There’s no question KK is a gregarious figurehead who can glad-hand the public with the best of them (while squeezing every ounce of revenue from his partnerships and biz ops behind the scenes), but he’s not really a true hockey guy given his background as a newspaper man.

My operating assumption when Jay Feaster was hired was the team would eventually make this move by bumping King up the ladder, moving Feaster into the Presidential role and then finding an up-and-coming GM to take the reins. Looks like the org might be keeping Jay in place and installing a more conventional "hockey guy" above him instead though.