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Blue Jackets Part Ways
With Doug MacLean (r) |
Blue Jackets President & GM
DOUG MACLEAN was fired last night after a meeting of the team’s ownership group, according to sources cited by Aaron Portzline of the COLUMBUS DISPATCH. MacLean, the only GM in the franchise’s seven-year history, had two years remaining on a contract that paid him $800,000 annually in base salary and $1M after incentives. By firing him, the team “must pay MacLean a large buyout sum, believed to be $1.6[M], or his remaining base salary” (
COLUMBUS DISPATCH, 4/19). In Columbus, Bob Hunter writes the Blue Jackets are the “only team that has never made the playoffs and it’s true that they have the worst record in the NHL for the past six years. But [MacLean] did a good job of selling the sport to a skeptical community that never had thought of itself as a hockey market.” The owners “had no choice, really. They would have to have been blind to miss the fury of fans fed up with the on-the-ice-failures and constant excuse-making” (
COLUMBUS DISPATCH, 4/19). The DISPATCH’s Michael Arace writes the Blue Jackets “had a lack of vision during MacLean’s tenure. He tried quick fixes early and sold patience later. The Big Plan never came into focus as it did in other expansion cities” (
COLUMBUS DISPATCH, 4/19).
