Post by bois on Jan 9, 2008 17:03:23 GMT -4
They arrive to great fanfare in 2003/04 after we thought we were getting Sherbrooke's franchise a year or two earlier.... fans are starving for quality hockey as we had seen none since the PEI senators ran away in the thick of the night.... season one we have a very solid team.. we have scoring heroes and Montreal draft picks Michael Lambert and Cory Urquhart, enforcer and great community guy (also Montreal daft pick) Jimmy Bonneau, former Habs coach Alain Vigneault behind the bench and Serge Savard Sr as a co owner of the franchise.... things are great
Team comes in and is very community involved.. players are on TV often, in paper always, at skates, reading in schools, on radio partnering with cops to fight teenage tobacco use etc etc etc, the place to be is the CCC .. a very entertaining playoff ends with a heartbreaking loss to bitter rivals (on ice and geographically) Moncton... but I can't wait for the next year to come and most people I know are on board the Rocket bandwagon
It's been suggested in the past (even by me) that we didn't do enough with that team to contend.. hindsight tells me that we did the right thing actually.. imagine if we had dealt some of our promising youth from that team (Grags, Mior, Hawes, Laliberte) .. sure maybe we win a title or make a championship appearnace but then where do we go from that? We've been seeing the effects of poor on ice performances on this club's ticket sales for 3 years now.... go from a championship run in year one to no playoff wins for 4 years and I suspect this team would already be gone instead of just on perilous legs.. so for year one I give the Rocket management an A++
Year two is where things started to decline sharply ....... ticket sales were still good because of the hangover from year one, the lack of NHL hockey , the Crosby effect etc etc etc.. but management became very complacent in year two... no longer was the team as visible in the community activities or the media, then even worse the team actually was red hot to begin that year (possibly even being ranked 1st nationally I believe)... it gave fans a very false feeling of what to expect for the duration of that season, as we slipped further and further down the standings we didn't deal anyone (other than Boutin) and missed the boat on rebuilding .... attendance began to suffer some
Year three started out terribly (after the first of Savard's soon to be annual off-season promises of special things ahead) as Vigneault left to go to the NHL on the eve of training camp opening and Yannick Jean being hastily hired despite being very young and inexperienced. Then our big off-season acquisition and hometown star Danny Stewart isn't sure he's going to show up and our promised 50 goal scorer Anton Skorykh doesn't show up either... these would be the first of the "slinging your shit thru the paper tactics that Savard would use......... unfortunately they weren't the last, tho they should have been.... the team never gelled at all .. players were sent home early... players were brought in with no impact at all (Boucher) basically every player move made was a disaster.. coupled with the poor performance from the previous year, the invisibility of the team in the public eye, the return of the NHL, the graduation of Crosby from the Q, the mass emigration out west of our youth and things were getting bad.. very bad
Then the worst move yet.. in a desperate panic move we actually sold young prospects and draft picks for a 1/2 season of overage dmen to ensure a playoff appearance against a league powerhouse ... team gave a fight and surprised many by scaring Bathurst early but reality was we weren't missing the playoffs with the SeaDogs in our division and we weren't beating Bathurst anyhow so why give up a kid like Dubuc? There was more slinging of shit thru the media with Truhkno demanding a trade , rumours of Mior quitting several times, Grags demanding a trade and being held ransom and forced to play etc etc etc...
Then another promise of better days.. this time tho it looked to be true.. we hold the Q draft and it's a success with us landing homegrown talent Chris Doyle and trading for quality overagers in Guillame Doucet and P.M. Guilbauilt.. damage has been done however and the rink gets emptier and emptier.. an opening night thrashing at the hands of Lewiston doesn't help sell tickets either.. team is marred by inconsistant play and rumours of problems in the room.. less and less promotions, virtually no community involvement (at least not visibly), the replay screen bullshit and more inconsitant on ice play.. then a very strange trade deadline where we bought early (Morrison, Gervais) and sold late (Hawes, Lund) .. almost cancelling each other out.. a very disappointing first round playoff loss (again) kills ticket selling momentum
season five begins with another off season promise of things being better and another rise in ticket prices (this is brilliant marketing strategy btw. when you've lost your fanbase let's get them back by charging them more.. someone needs a business refresher but that's another day) and it appears to be more of the same.. inconsistant play , bad coaching , sparse crowds.. franchise appears very near death with rumour mill running rampant about Rocket leaving... then the great news.. Jean is gone.. Chouinard an experienced winning coach is hired.. even better Savard handing over hockey operations title as well... could it be? team is on right track? trade period opens with prices sky high and we do nothing... but patience finally pays off and on the last 48 hours we hit the proverbial jackpot and restock the system with immense depth.... my waning faith is restored
I think the hockey operations are finally in great shape now and that is most important but the business side stills needs major work, especially in terms of PR and use of the media. This league can work here but it will take work from those in charge .. otherwise it won't work here or anywhere for that matter.. the honeymoon is over and we're all sleeping in seperate beds now... time to light some candles and set the mood so to speak.. Serge you had us at hello.. it's too soon to say goodbye
Team comes in and is very community involved.. players are on TV often, in paper always, at skates, reading in schools, on radio partnering with cops to fight teenage tobacco use etc etc etc, the place to be is the CCC .. a very entertaining playoff ends with a heartbreaking loss to bitter rivals (on ice and geographically) Moncton... but I can't wait for the next year to come and most people I know are on board the Rocket bandwagon
It's been suggested in the past (even by me) that we didn't do enough with that team to contend.. hindsight tells me that we did the right thing actually.. imagine if we had dealt some of our promising youth from that team (Grags, Mior, Hawes, Laliberte) .. sure maybe we win a title or make a championship appearnace but then where do we go from that? We've been seeing the effects of poor on ice performances on this club's ticket sales for 3 years now.... go from a championship run in year one to no playoff wins for 4 years and I suspect this team would already be gone instead of just on perilous legs.. so for year one I give the Rocket management an A++
Year two is where things started to decline sharply ....... ticket sales were still good because of the hangover from year one, the lack of NHL hockey , the Crosby effect etc etc etc.. but management became very complacent in year two... no longer was the team as visible in the community activities or the media, then even worse the team actually was red hot to begin that year (possibly even being ranked 1st nationally I believe)... it gave fans a very false feeling of what to expect for the duration of that season, as we slipped further and further down the standings we didn't deal anyone (other than Boutin) and missed the boat on rebuilding .... attendance began to suffer some
Year three started out terribly (after the first of Savard's soon to be annual off-season promises of special things ahead) as Vigneault left to go to the NHL on the eve of training camp opening and Yannick Jean being hastily hired despite being very young and inexperienced. Then our big off-season acquisition and hometown star Danny Stewart isn't sure he's going to show up and our promised 50 goal scorer Anton Skorykh doesn't show up either... these would be the first of the "slinging your shit thru the paper tactics that Savard would use......... unfortunately they weren't the last, tho they should have been.... the team never gelled at all .. players were sent home early... players were brought in with no impact at all (Boucher) basically every player move made was a disaster.. coupled with the poor performance from the previous year, the invisibility of the team in the public eye, the return of the NHL, the graduation of Crosby from the Q, the mass emigration out west of our youth and things were getting bad.. very bad
Then the worst move yet.. in a desperate panic move we actually sold young prospects and draft picks for a 1/2 season of overage dmen to ensure a playoff appearance against a league powerhouse ... team gave a fight and surprised many by scaring Bathurst early but reality was we weren't missing the playoffs with the SeaDogs in our division and we weren't beating Bathurst anyhow so why give up a kid like Dubuc? There was more slinging of shit thru the media with Truhkno demanding a trade , rumours of Mior quitting several times, Grags demanding a trade and being held ransom and forced to play etc etc etc...
Then another promise of better days.. this time tho it looked to be true.. we hold the Q draft and it's a success with us landing homegrown talent Chris Doyle and trading for quality overagers in Guillame Doucet and P.M. Guilbauilt.. damage has been done however and the rink gets emptier and emptier.. an opening night thrashing at the hands of Lewiston doesn't help sell tickets either.. team is marred by inconsistant play and rumours of problems in the room.. less and less promotions, virtually no community involvement (at least not visibly), the replay screen bullshit and more inconsitant on ice play.. then a very strange trade deadline where we bought early (Morrison, Gervais) and sold late (Hawes, Lund) .. almost cancelling each other out.. a very disappointing first round playoff loss (again) kills ticket selling momentum
season five begins with another off season promise of things being better and another rise in ticket prices (this is brilliant marketing strategy btw. when you've lost your fanbase let's get them back by charging them more.. someone needs a business refresher but that's another day) and it appears to be more of the same.. inconsistant play , bad coaching , sparse crowds.. franchise appears very near death with rumour mill running rampant about Rocket leaving... then the great news.. Jean is gone.. Chouinard an experienced winning coach is hired.. even better Savard handing over hockey operations title as well... could it be? team is on right track? trade period opens with prices sky high and we do nothing... but patience finally pays off and on the last 48 hours we hit the proverbial jackpot and restock the system with immense depth.... my waning faith is restored
I think the hockey operations are finally in great shape now and that is most important but the business side stills needs major work, especially in terms of PR and use of the media. This league can work here but it will take work from those in charge .. otherwise it won't work here or anywhere for that matter.. the honeymoon is over and we're all sleeping in seperate beds now... time to light some candles and set the mood so to speak.. Serge you had us at hello.. it's too soon to say goodbye
You should have been a teacher 
