The Calgary Flames announced that president of hockey operations, Brian Burke, will be leaving the team next week and will immediately start working with Sportsnet.
Well, it’s been a decently busy for the Calgary Flames the past week. First they fired head coach Glen Gulutzan along with two assistant coaches. Then they hired the new head coach, Bill Peters. Now, they’ve announced that Brian Burke will be leaving the team next week.
Brian Burke served as the team’s president of hockey operations. When he took the position before the start of the 2013-14 season, only two other teams had such a role: the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Edmonton Oilers. The role is between the General Manager and the President or Owner of the franchise. He serves mainly as an advisory role, however, it was reported that he had a final say in many of the Flames decisions.
Burke was previously the GM of the Anaheim Ducks and the GM and President of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Without Burke, maybe many people will finally have to learn who the Flames GM is.
Related Story: Flames hire Bill Peters as new head coach
According to Burke, this was a mutual decision by both parties. After the extension of Brad Treliving, it was also reported that in order to Treliving to re-sign with the Flames, he didn’t want to have to go through Burke for every decision and wanted to have a say. So Burke would have somewhat of a pointless role.
Via Sportsnet:
"“When we extended Tree’s (GM Brad Treliving) contract last summer I said ‘at some point I’m going to be redundant now.’ And here we are. I’m absolutely comfortable with this. I think people often try to colour things and say, ‘it’s a mutual agreement,’ when it’s not. But it is in this case.”"
Everyone knows Burke as never having his tie done up. My favourite Burke moment is when he was doing a ceremonial puck drop for the Calgary Inferno (the CWHL team), I had to go on the ice to get a picture and I went on there with an undone tie. I don’t think he noticed, but I thought I was funny.
My favourite Burke quote was after the Oilers had won three draft lotteries in a row. The next year, he said “I’ll beat the snot out of somebody if the Oilers win the first pick”. Same, Burkie.
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Well, I’m not completely sure what exactly how much he helped the Calgary Flames, but he will be (maybe?) missed. Sort of? I don’t know the general consensus on Brian Burke to be honest.