What is going on in Ottawa?

[hf101]

Apparently Melynk is reporting that he has lost almost $100 Million since acquiring the team in 2003. As I wrote in another thread the NHL has apparently placed the Senators on the financial "watch list". The team is third from the bottom of the list on Capgeek with over $11M left in available cap space so there surely was enough money to keep Alfredsson and trade for Ryan.

So what is going on here? Is this a franchise looking for new ownership like the Devils?

Apparently Melynk promised Alfie a wealthy contract after Alfredsson accepted the 1 year 1M deal last year. When Murray / Melynk didn't seem to remember that conversation Alfie left the Senators and signed a contract with Detroit.

Does Detroit now have an immediate rival in the East?

Travis Yost of Hockeybuzz reports that Melynk is setting himself up for a lawsuit.

Attacks on JP Barry's character and their already tenuous relationship aside, Eugene Melnyk has a very real issue now on his hands. His assertion that JP Barry breached contract and duty in his professional relationship with Daniel Alfredsson by withholding information from the player is a libelous one if inaccurate, and could very well create the foundation for a coming civil suit.

"If you want to play a blame game - that is where you should be looking," Melnyk told TSN on Friday. "I have a lot of respect for Daniel. I simply think he was not told the whole story or worse, was lied to. I won't be commenting on this again. We are busy and have a Stanley Cup to win."

Melynk also blames JP Barry for the Heatley mess.

Apparently Melynk promised Alfie a wealthy contract after Alfredsson accepted the 1 year 1M deal last year.

Is this recent media attention a means of getting different ownership? Is the attention fueled by Melynk himself?

First of all we need some Senators fans here!

Second

[jammer2]

Something is not jiving here 101. The Sens sold out during the strike shortened season. They were 6th in the NHL and sold the building out to tune of 101.3%. Just how is Melynk losing all this money?

http://www.hockeyattendance.com/league/nhl/2012/?sort=avg_att

If a hockey crazy city like Ottawa loses 100 million in a 10 year span AND plays to sell outs, they might as well fold the whole league. Something is not right here.....

[yave1964]

The Senators sell out and make it to the second round for additional playoff revenue and lose that much?? Cmon, that dog don't hunt.

As far as the Alfie situation, Alfie told his side this week and the owner/GM didn't really deny much of what Alfie said. It is sad when a player leaves an organization that he has played with forever, it is kind of like a divorce. Of course Ryan coming in to replace Alfie is kind of like being replaced by a younger woman for Alfie.

[nossagog]

Sounds like there is going to be a lot of he said she said here. But there was something that Alfie said during his presser that was disturbing.

"When I did my last contract for four years ending in the (2012-13) season, I was asked to help the team manage the salary cap by adding on a extra year to my contract," he said in an opening statement. "I agreed. Each side fully expected I would retire and not play the 2012-13 season."

Now Alfie did not retire before the 12-13 season, but this sounds as though there was a wink wink in place such that it was agreed that Alfie would retire with a year left contract, minimizing the cap hit. This sounds like during the contract negotiations, there was collusion between the player and the team to circumvent the spirit of the salary cap. I'd like to hear a little more from the team on this.

[jammer2]

@nossagog Excellent point. I want some answers here, cause it certainly looked like Alfie put his foot in his mouth. If each side fully expected retirement, then they circumvented the cap. The interesting part is Alfie can't get touched for this, he does not manage the cap. Putting it on the Sens now means nothing to Alfie, but I'm sure the Wings would not mind if a direct division rival gets a pick taken away or fines...ha ha, maybe the Wings even put him up to it!!

[jammer2]

@nossagog Actually, puckdaddy is all over this Alfie deal. You will *NOT* believe the NHL's response to this mess....I CALL BS!!!

http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/bryan-murray-cheater-nhl-doesn-t-care-155050275.html

Nicely written article btw.

[nossagog]

Yikes, that's hard to believe. I thought the response would be a lot of denial from the Sens brass. I can't fathom how the league can just let this go by without at least saying something.

[goalnut3133]

The weird thing is that Murray admitted it (& I'm sure a lot of other teams have done this but just hasn't come out in the open)...."something is rotten in the state of Denmark"....

[jammer2]

Toronto Sun story refuting the "Sen's are in trouble" stuff.

http://www.torontosun.com/2013/08/16/ottawa-senators-owner-eugene-melnyk-criticizes-jp-barry-for-agents-role-in-daniel-alfredsson-contract-negotiations

[hf101]

And this strange story continues..... some real crazy stuff.

 

Just looking back at my original post.  I thought I had that quote stating that that the NHL had placed the Senators on a watch list.  That the Senators were reporting to have been in the black $94M . It has disappeared, along with maybe some of my comments.  

 

 

 

Puck Daddy posted a story today that Travis Yost's account on Hockeybuzz has been hacked.  Removed the archive of all of his blogs and twitter account.

 

 

On Sunday, all the work of this random useless blogger -- as well as his Twitter account -- disappeared from the Internet. Yost, it would appear, had been hacked. The only post left in Yost's archive is this innocuous piece of writing on Jared Cowen's contract. All that other stuff? Gone.

If the nine-part series on the Sens' money didn't give it away, Yost is a pretty thorough guy, and his investigation into the source of the alleged hack is equally thorough. It's also pretty interesting, since it yielded a very bizarre connection.

Like everything else, Yost's writing on the hack was wiped from Hockey Buzz, so he had to upload it elsewhere.

"Prior to Saturday night," he writes, "innumerable attempts had been made through private messaging to force me through phony hyperlinks to third-party sites. Standard operating procedure for anyone trying to obtain another individual's IP address, from what I understand."

It's called phishing. It's how the Syrian Electronic Army hacked The Onion. If you're looking to scrub an author's work from the web, tricking the author into surrendering his website's login information to you and deleting the posts manually is probably the best way.

Yost looked into the phony links he was being sent, and traced the IP address back to a domain in the Ukraine. That alone isn't much. The Ukraine is apparently a "haven for hackers". But here's where it gets odd: according to Yost, a reverse IP search led him to an "aliveview.com.ua" domain with just one other real connection: Help Us Help The Children, a Ukrainian humanitarian organization for which Eugene Melnyk serves as the honourary director.

That may very well be completely coincidental. But it's a bizarre connection to make. Although maybe the culprit is just a clever hockey fan, like Angelina Jolie's character in Hackers?

Whoever is behind the alleged hacking, if the goal here is to shut down any talk of Ottawa's financial troubles (which seem quite real in light of the Ottawa Citizen's report that the Senators have lost $94 million under Melnyk), The Streisand Effect seems particularly apt. Rather than disappearing from the Internet, this story has found its way here. And here.

 

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/blogger-hacked-reporting-senators-finances-dispute-eugene-melnyk-210553389.html#more-65669

 

 

SBNation has a very detailed account of the blogger attack along with links to the old cached blogs.

 

http://www.sbnation.com/nhl/2013/8/25/4657074/travis-yost-hacked-eugene-melnyk-ottawa-senators-finances

 

 

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.hockeybuzz.com%2Fblog%2FHockeyBuzz-Hotstove%2FYOST-The-Ukraine-Hacking-and-Charity%2F160%2F53542&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&client=firefox-a&gws_rd=cr#.UhqklpLrzV3

[jammer2]

  Their case for Sens owner Eugene Melynk having Urkaine *ties* is kinda weak. Don't see why a guy with so much money would put himself in harms way to pull a stunt like this. Besides it is the "Striesand effect" is in full swing anyways. This story is getting much more press than it ever did to start out with.

[hf101]

@jammer2  I dunno, seems rather strange.  That quote disappeared from my first post also.  Someone or some group is definitely trying really hard to lose this story.  

 

imo, if the 94M losses were false, then show the paperwork to prove him wrong..... the story stops right there.

[jammer2]

@hf101  I agree somebody is working hard to squash the story, but it's totally counter productive. Our conversation proves it. Millions more will read about it now, and in more depth. Anyone with a load of money would have known what the outcome would have been.